SF 487 
W292 

Copy 1 0t^m^m0$mtmtm^0mmM0t^0ma0mm$^$m0mfm 



200 Eggs a Year 



How To Get Them. 



' 



PER HEN: 



' 




Price SO Cents. 



PUBLISHED BY 

EDGAR WARREN. Hampton, N. H. 
1904. 



\i0m0fmii90tk0mmi^m0kimi¥m0fm0immmi0t^0ttmMm 



standards of Perfection. 



Old 
Homestead 



Incubators and Brooders. 





Practical Machines for Practical People 



Why?? 

BROODERS. 
Open Hover — large floor space — no heat drum in 
center — therefore easily cleaned — chicks do not 
huddle— all seen at once by opening door — full 
rated capacity — aluminum lamp — never gets hot — 
sweats oil — or rusts. 

INCUBATORS. 
An incubator in an incubator — therefore unaffected 
by changes of outside temperature — perfect regula- 
tion — cannot be overheated — ventilation positive, 
but controlled — egg chamber surrounded with a 
moving current of warm air — In fact the only 
up-to-date incubator. 

Catalogue free. 

OLD HOMESTEAD 

BROODER CO., 

Vine Street 

MIDDLEBORO, MASS. 





FOURTH EDITION. 



200 Eggs a Year Per Hen : 
How to Get Them. 



A Practical Treatise 



on 



Egg Making and Its Conditions 

and 

Profits in Poultry. 



Price 50 Cents. 



PUBLISHED BY 

EDGAR WARREN, Hampton, N. H. 
1904. 



' "i; L artflwv OF 

CONGRtSS, 
One Copy ftfcoeivEO 

APR. K 1904 

lOLASS "^ XXa MoJ 

oopy A. 



V 



\^ 



!'?' 



COPYRIGHT 1899, 1900, 190-2, 

By EDGAR L. WARREN. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 



We hear a good deal said in these days about the 200 egg 
hen. Some are disposed to deny her existence, and to class her 
with such fabulous or semi-fabulous birds as the phoenix and 
dodo. Others admit that she has appeared in isolated instances, 
but is by no means common. Others contend that if she should 
appear in large numbers it would be a misfortune rather 
than otherwise, for such excessive egg production would weaken 
her system so that her eggs would not hatch healthy and vigorous 
chicks ; and the 200 egg hen would be in constant danger of 
extinction from her own success. 

One thing is certain, however, the 200 egg hen is no myth. 
There are many of them scattered about, and the tribe is on the 
increase. My reputation for truth and veracity is reasonably 
good ; yet I am willing to make oath that I had a flock of 14 
White VVyandottes that from October to October gave me a total 
of 2999 eggs, an average of a little better than 214 eggs apiece. 
There are others who can beat this. Men are already talking of 
the 250 egg hen, and before we realize it she will be here. 

I do not see how a man can draw an arbitrary line, and say 
how many eggs a hen may or may not lay in a year. The hen in 
her wild state lays from six to ten ; the average farmer's hen not 
over 100; while on egg farms the average is raised to 150. But 
why stop here? There are 365 days in a year; and I do not see 
why a pullet that is fully matured, that comes from an egg pro- 
ducing strain, that is properly fed and cared for and kept steadily 
at work, may not lay at least 200 eggs in that time. 

I am prepared to admit that a hen will not lay 200 eggs a year 
without constant and intelligent care. I am also prepared to 
admit that in some cases the number of eggs extra a hen will lay 
where she has this constant and intelligent care will not pay for the 
time consumed, and that it may be more profitable to get an aver- 
age of say 150 eggs a year than a larger number. But I believe 
that in the poultry business, as in every other, it is well to have a 
high ideal. The man who inscribes on his banner, "Two Hun- 
dred Eggs a Year Per Hen," and then comes as near it as he 
can, will make more money and have more fun than will the man 
who is content to take what comes along. 



THE HEREDITY OF THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 

When I was a boy a mile in 2:40 was regarded as a great 
performance for a trotting horse. There were horses that had 
trotted under 2:40, much under, but they were few. I remember 
it was the custom for us urchins to cry out whenever a man drove 
by at a slashing gait, "Go it, two-forty !" I am not an old man 
yet by any means — my wife tells m.e that I am young — but I have 
lived to see the trotting record come down and down until it has 
dropped below the two minute mark. A horse that cannot trot 
in less than 2:40 is regarded as a good horse for a woman to 
drive, but out of place on the track. 

What has brought the record down and down until men are 
looking for the two minute horse? Heredity and handling! 
A trotting horse now has a pedigree as long as a European 
monarch. The blood of generations of trotters flows in his veins. 
It may be the ancestral lines converge in the great Messenger 
himself. 

Heredity and handling ! These two things are as necessary 
for the 200 egg hen as for the two minute horse. Men do not 
gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. The 200 egg 
hen must be bred to lay. She must come from an egg-producing 
strain. No matter how scientifically a man may feed or how 
hygienically he may house, he cannot take a flock of hens of any 
old breed or no breed and get 200 eggs a year apiece from them. 
It is impossible. By carefully following the instructions of this 
book he can largely increase the egg yield of such a flock, but he 
must not expect to get 200 eggs a year apiece. I cannot impress 
it too strongly upon the reader's mind that if he expects to get 
200 eggs a year apiece from his hens he must start in with a great 
laying strain. 

WHAT BREED IS BEST.? 
There is an old Latin proverb, De gustibus non est disputan- 
duni, which I will take tlie liberty to translate for the benefit of 
those who have been out of school for some time. Its meaning is 
this : In matters of taste there is no argument. This is as true 
in the poultry business as it is elsewhere. Other things being- 
equal that breed is the best for a man which he likes best. There 
is no breed that combines all the excellences and has none of the 
defects. There is no breed that does not have its admirers. In 
general it may be said that the most profitable breeds are to be 



found in the Asiatic, American and Mediterranean classes, as fol- 
lows : In the Asiatic class the Light Brahmas, Black Langshans, 
Buff and Partridge Cochins ; in the American class the Barred, 
Buff" and White Plymouth Rocks, all the Wyandottes and the 
Rhode Island Reds ; in the Mediterranean class the Black 
Minorcas, Brown, White and Buff Leghorns. These are the 
great money-making varieties. The Asiatics are excellent table 
fowls and prolific layers of dark brown eggs. They are good 
sitters and mothers, although somewhat clumsy. They are 
inclined to be sluggish and readily take on fat. They stand cold 
well, and make good winter layers. The Mediterraneans are egg 
machines, turning out great quantities of white-shelled eggs. 
They do not stand cold as well as the Asiatic and American 
breeds, and are not as good fowls for the table. The Americans 
on the whole are the favorites. They are all-round birds, good 
layers of brown eggs, excellent for the table, good sitters and 
mothers. They stand cold w^ell, and are the birds for farmers 
and breeders. The danger with every breed is that it will get 
into the hands of the fanciers and be bred for points rather than 
for utility. Stamina is the important thing, and not the show 
card. It will be a great day for the poultry business when far- 
mers keep more pure-bred fowls, for then the great standard 
varieties may be kept up without danger of deterioration. 

HOW MANY VARIETIES SHALL I KEEP? 
After studying the matter carefully, I have come to the con- 
clusion that it is better for the average poultryman to confine 
himself to one variety. He will get better results and make more 
money if he concentrates his energies than he will if he dissipates 
them. After a man has made a success with one variety he may 
perhaps add another, and even a third; but the best poultrymen 
do not handle many varieties, and some of the most successful 
confine themselves to one. Where several varieties are kept I 
would suggest that there be some principle of unity determining 
the choice. Let the birds all be of one color — say white, black 
or buff — or let them all be of one family like the Leghorns, 
Wyandottes or Plymouth Rocks. Where the fowls are all of one 
family they will have the same characteristics and respond to the 
same treatment. In case of an accidental mix-up the damage is 
reduced to a minimum, for the birds are all of the same size, 
comb and contour. 



HOW MANY RECORDS ARE WRECKED. 

Some time ago I received a letter from a young lady who 
is an enthusiastic poukrywoman, in which she said that she was 
getting a goodly number of eggs, but that her record was lowered 
because she had kept over half a dozen hens which had laid well 
the year before. She said that she knew better, but could not 
resist the temptation. I mention this case because it is so typical. 
More egg records are wrecked by keeping old hens in the flock 
than in any other way ! There is always a temptation when a 
hen has laid well to keep her the second year. This temptation 
must be resisted if one is in quest of a big egg record. The fact 
that a hen has laid well for one year since coming to maturity 
incapacitates her from ever laying so well again. She has 
drained her system, and requires recuperation before she can lay 
even moderately. You may set it down as an axiom that it is 
the pullets that give the big egg records. If you have in your 
flock some hens that you desire to keep a second year as a reward 
for past services, or for breeders and mothers, put them in a pen 
by themselves and do not look for more than a moderate egg pro- 
duction from them. It is the pullets that lay, and the early- 
hatched pullets at that. Get out your chickens in Alarch, April 
or May, according to the breed, if you want winter layers. 

WEED OUT THE NON-LAYERS. 

Reports from the Maine Experiment Station, where trap 
nests are used and individual records kept, show that among hens 
of tlie same breed and kept under the same conditions there is a 
great difl^erence in egg production. One Barred Plymouth Rock 
•laid 251 eggs in one year, while another in the same flock laid but 
eight. A White Wyandotte pullet laid 219 eggs, while 
another of the same breed laid absolutely none. These 
figures are most significant, showing as they do the 
absolute necessity of weeding out the non-producers. Suppose 
you have two hens in a pen, and one lays 200 eggs a year and the 
other none. The average for the two is lOO eggs apiece. In 
other words, the non-layer has reduced the pen record one-half. 
It costs a- dollar a year to feed a hen, and this money is thrown 
away if the hen does not lay. The one absolutely sure way of 
identifying the layers and non-layers is by the use of the trap 
nest ; but this takes time, and many do not feel that it pays. Still 



7 

without the use of the trap nest, by keeping one's eyes and ears 
open, one can pick out the layers with sufficient accuracy for all 
practical purposes, as I shall show before I get through. 

THE THREE CONDITIONS OF EGG PRODUCTION. 

It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, one of the greatest men that 
ever lived, that Nature is the great teacher, and that in order to 
learn we must interrogate Nature. If we study Nature with open 
eyes she will often give us suggestions of great value and fruit- 
fulness. The poultryman must continually go to Nature, the 
great teacher, and he will not go in vain. In the state of Nature 
in which wild fowls live, or in the state of semi-Nature in which 
the farmer's fowls are kept, what is the season of egg produc- 
tion? Summer. Why? Because in summer the conditions of 
egg production are present. What are these conditions ? 
Warmth, proper food and exercise. Reproduce these conditions 
at any season of the year and the fowl will be likely to lay. The 
poultryman should keep this fact in mind and govern himself 
accordingly. 

IS THERE AN EGG TYPE? 

Before I pass to the next chapter I wish to take up a subject 
upon which there is a wide difference of opinion — Is there an egg 
type? Some of those who ought to know claim there is not. 
But I am of the opinion that as there is a type of cow that we 
associate with large production of milk, so there is a type of hen 
that we may associate with large production of eggs. I believe 
that a hen with a broad breast, a long, deep body and straight 
underline (the so called "wedge-shape" fowl) will lay better than 
one with a narrow breast, a short body and curved underline. 
The reason is not far to seek. The vital organs are confined 
within the body, and in a hen with a broad breast and long, deep 
body there is plenty of room for the organs of assimilation and 
reproduction ; while in a hen with a short, curved body these 
organs are necessarily constricted. If a hen is to lay well she 
must eat well, breathe well, and have large ovaries; in other 
words there must be plenty of room inside for all the great organs 
to perform their functions. This explains why there is a tendency 
on the part of the egg-producing breeds to increase in size. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE HOME OF THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 

Much of a man's success or failure in tlie poultry business 
will depend upon the location and construction of his plant. 
Where hens are kept in small numbers and given free range, they 
do well almost anywhere ; but where they are kept in large num- 
bers and in confinement, they must have as favorable condi- 
tions as possible or they will prove a source of loss and not of 
profit to their owner. 

The best location for a poultry plant is on sandy soil where 
there is a gentle slope to the south or southeast. If there is a 
windbreak of some kind on the north and northwest the location 
becomes ideal. Such a location, however, is hard to find — nor is 
it indispensable. Poultry can be kept on almost any soil, pro- 
vided it is not saturated with water for a considerable portion of 
the year. Even a clay soil has its advantages : it produces a lux- 
uriant growth of grass which not only provides the fowls with 
forage, but which also by its roots takes up the excrement which 
otherwise might contaminate the ground. 

Before the poultryman drives a nail or does a stroke of work, 
he should carefully consider the possibilities of his situation, and 
lay out his prospective plant in his mind. If he is to build 
largely at once it might pay him to consult an expert. But if he 
is to build only one sm.all house, he should build it with reference 
to others that he may put up in future years. So I say, have a 
plan. The details may be filled in at the poultryman's conven- 
ience — or they may never be filled in. But if the man lives and 
his business grows the time will come when he will thank his 
stars that he was wise and far-seeing enough to have a plan at 
the very start, and not have to waste time and money moving 
buildings about or in tearing them down and replacing them 
with others. 

THE COLONY PLAN. 
There are three methods of keeping hens in large numbers. 
The first of these is the colony plan. The principle of the colony 
plan is that of keeping hens in small segregated houses — twenty- 
five to fifty hens in a house. These houses are scattered at regular 
intervals over the farm, and are visited two or three times a day 



9 



by an attendant. The hens are given free range. It has been 
found that when houses are one hundred yards apart, or even 
less, flocks will not mingle, but each flock will keep in the neigh- 
borhood of its own house. This plan has its advantages. It is 
inexpensive. The houses may be of the cheapest kind. No 
yards are required. The hens at certain seasons of the year pick 




Colony house lo accommodate from 12 to 25 fowls. This house is eight feet square on the 
ground, and eight feel from floor to apex of roof. There is no frame, but the roof boards are 
nailed to the ridgepole and to plank baseboards. 



up a good deal of their living. If the houses are located in an 
orchard the hens fertilize the ground around the trees and eat 
the wormy fruit. No dangerous disease is likely to break out 
among hens kept in colonies. But on the other hand the plan 
has serious drawbacks. Even in pleasant weather it requires a 
good deal of time each day to visit the scattered flocks ; but in 
winter, when a blizzard is raging, to make the rounds of the 
houses is an experience calculated to make one appreciate the 
perils and hardships of a Polar expedition. Then, too, these 
isolated, detached houses are shining marks for thieves ; and 
unless the neighborhood is exceptionally honest, the poultryman 
may wake up some morning to discover that two or three hun- 
dred of his fowls have vanished. 



10 



THE COMMUNITY PLAN. 

The second method of keeping hens in large numbers is what 
I may call the community plan, and is sufficiently described by 
the name. The majority of large poultry plants in this country 
are constructed on this plan. The great argument in favor of 
this plan is economy — economy in labor, economy in land. The 
original cost of a plant on the community plan is somewhat greater 
than the cost of a plant on the colony plan ; but when the plant is 
erected and equipped the saving begins. There are, however, 
some objections to this plan besides the initial cost. It has been 
found very difficult to keep the houses perfectly dry, where the 
length exceeds sixty feet. Moisture collects on the walls and 
roof, and in cold weather congeals, so that in these long houses 
there is often a coating of frost. In cleaning out the long houses 
it is somewhat difficult to reach the central compartments, requir- 
ing as it does a long walk and the opening and shutting of many 
doors and gates. Where a virulent disease like cholera or roup 
breaks out in one compartment, as it sometimes will,, it has been 
found almost impossible to confine it to that compartment — 
germs traveling in the air, or being conveyed from one pen to 
another in excrement which may stick to the feet. With the 
community plan go long, narrow yards or parks, which can be 
fenced only at considerable cost. 

The scratching shed has now become an integral part of many 
of the long houses. The scratching shed, as its name implies, is 
a place for exercise under the same roof with the laying room,, 
but more open to the weather. The scratching shed has many 
enthusiastic advocates who claim that it is indispensable to the 
health and comfort of the fowls in winter, and will more than pay 
for itself in an increased egg output. The claims for the 
scratching shed house seem so valid that if I were building a 
house more than 60 feet in length, I should certainly add scratch- 
ing sheds. 

It is impossible in an article like this to give a plan for a house 
tliat will suit every purse and every place. I can only submit a 
cut of what I consider the best community house I have yet seen,, 
and give a brief description of it. The house is on the Dunning- 
Gardner Poultrv Farm, of Auburn, N. Y. 



11 



•=• 2i 



t 3 



C 2. 
s o 




12 

The liouse shown in the foreground of the view is 
i8o feet long by 12 wide, and is divided into 10 sections, each 
18 feet. Each section is in turn divided into a scratching shed 
of nine feet, and a laying and roosting room of the same length. 
The house is made of the best material, double boarded with paper 
between and ceiled overhead at the height of six feet. In each 
pen is a large window, a small ventilating window into the hall- 
way and a ventilating hole cut through the ceiling which draws 
off the foul air but forms no draught. 

The scratching sheds are open in front, with a canvas which 
can be let down to keep the snow out. The yards are 150 feet 
long, with a row of fruit trees in each, and are plowed and 
sowed each year. At present there are three of these long houses 
on the plant and more will be added as they are needed. 

THE MONTANA EXPERHIEXT STATION HOUSE. 

An important and in many ways desirable variation from the 
ordinary scratching shed house is the main poultry building in 
use at the Agricultural Experiment Station at Bozeman, Mon- 
tana. "The building is ^2 feet long and 14 feet wide with a four 
foot passage in the rear. It is divided into pens 12 feet long and 
10 feet wide, and is set upon a foundation of stone 18 inches 
wide and two feet high. The slope of the roof is for the main 
portion to the south, the ridge coming just above the passage way 
four feet from the rear wall. This slope of roof is of great 
advantage since the sun rapidly melts the snow on the southern 
incline making it warmer and drier, while on the other side the 
slope is so steep that the snow does not lodge there. 

"The next most important feature is the double floor. The 
exit from the pens is through the floor into the space underneath 
the building. This basement has a ground floor, and it is two 
feet from the ground to the sills. In summer, this makes a fine, 
cool and shady place when doors shown in cut are down and 
portholes open, while in winter with the doors raised the low sun 
enables the sunlight to extend more than half of the distance 
from front to rear, making an ideal place for dusting and scratch- 
ing. This feature adds greatly to the usefulness of the building, 
since it so materially increases the floor space without afifecting 
the area of the roof." 



13 



""} 



14 



THE COLONY-COMMUNITY PLAN. 

The third method of keeping hens in large numbers is, so far 
as I know, original with me. and may be called the colony-com- 
munity plan. The plan in brief is this : to keep the hens in small 
detached houses built in streets and situated close to one another, 
with yards running to the rear instead of the front. 

It has always seemed to me a great mistake to run the yards 
to the front of a hen house instead of to the rear. There are 
innumerable occasions when the poultryman wishes to visit a pen 
in the middle of a long house, and in order to do so he must open 
and shut half a dozen doors or pass along an alley way for fifty 
■or one hundred feet. When he wishes to remove the litter or 
shovel sand into the middle pens it is necessary to open and shut 
a number of gates before he can do so. But with the yards in 
the rear the poultryman can drive along the front of his house 
and reach the middle pen as easily as he can at the ends. 




Colony-community houses arranged in streets, with yards running to the rear. 

The houses that I use in the colony-community plan are all 
alike, and are very simple in construction. Each house is 12 feet 
long, seven feet wide, seven feet high in front and five feet high 
in the rear ; and is designed to accommodate 50 brooder chicks, 20 



15 

head of laying stock, or a breeding pen of one male and 12 
females. 

The house rests on cedar posts or old railroad ties put in the 
ground below the frost line and sawed off eight inches above the 
surface. There are six of these posts, three on each side, and 
where old railroad ties are used the whole cost of the founda- 
tion is 15 cents. On these ties are laid two m.ain sills and four 
cross sills, each 2x4 spruce. The plates are 2x4 stuff, but the 
other timbers in the frame — posts and rafters — are 2x3. 

After the building is framed the floor is laid. This is double, 




Colony-community house designed to accommodate 50 brooder chicks, 20 head of laying 
stock, or ore male and 12 females. 

and between the upper and lower floor Neponset black sheathing 
is used. The covering to the frame is then put on, and over the 
boards Neponset black sheathing is tacked. This is to be cov- 
ered with Neponset red paper. All the boards in the frame are 
hemlock. 

The roof is a very important part of a hen house. When the 
rafters are put on they are sawed off flush with the plate ; and 
when the sides are boarded the boards are brought up so that 
they cover the ends of the rafters and also the edge of the roofing 
boards, making an absolutely tight joint. Neponset black sheath- 



16 

ing is then laid over the roof boards, and a double course of 
shingles laid along the lower edge of the roof. The object of this 
course of shingles is to throw the water from the roof away from 
the house. The roof is then covered with Paroid, carefully put 
on and allowed to project a few inches at the ends. This flap 
will eventually be turned in and held in place by the finish. 

The house is supposed to face south. There are two win- 
dows, one on the south side and one on the east end. There is 
a door in front, and a panel in the rear which can be raised or 
lowered at will to let the hens out into the yard. After the house 
is finished all the outside woodwork receives a coat, of dark green 
paint, which forms an effective contrast with the brick-red of the 
Neponset paper. Indeed, all who see the house remark how neat 
and pretty it is. 

INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION. 

The interior of the house is of the very simplest. I have 
learned from hard experience to have as little furniture in a hen 
house as possible, and that many of the things advertised as 
helps for the poultrymen are really hindrances. The house, as I 
have said, faces the south. The roosts, instead of being in the 
rear, as is commonly the case, are in the west end, away from all 
possibility of draughts. The roost platform is two feet and a 
half above the floor, and is constructed of dry matched pine 
boards, which I get from old dry goods boxes. The platform, as 
soon as built, is covered with a coat of hot tar. There are two 
roosts, or perches, parallel and on the same level. I forgot to say 
that the roost platform is three feet wide, which enables me to 
place my perches one foot apart, and one foot from the back wall 
and one foot from the edge of the platform. The perches are of 
spruce, 2x3, with the upper end slightly rounded, and set in sock- 
ets cut out of boards. They are removable. The perches are 
also covered with hot tar, as are the sockets in which they are set. 
Red mites let my houses severely alone. 

The materials used in the house are as follows : Hemlock 
boards, 500 feet; matched pine for doors, trimmings, etc., 60 feet; 
frame (board measure), 100 feet; windows; Neponset black 
.sheathing, 250 feet; Neponset red rope, 250 feet; Paroid, 100 feet; 
hardware, etc. The cost of such a house, exclusive of labor, in 
New Hampshire to-day would be not far from $20. Two men, 
working together, can complete the house in two days. Such a 



17 



house always finds a ready sale, and if the owner wishes to move 
out of town or go out of the hen business at any time he can sell 
the hou'-e for about half what it cost him. 

In case a somewhat larger house is wanted, the dimensions 
may be enlarged as follows: Length, 14 feet; width, 8 feet; 
height in front, 7^ feet ; height in rear, 5^ feet. This will pre- 
serve the proportions and give nearly one-half more floor space. 

HOUSE MADE P^ROM PIANO BOXES. 

Possibly there are some who desire even a cheaper house than 
the ones I have described. It may be they expect to remain but 
a short time where they are, or wish a house for young stock, 
and do not care to invest even $20 in a building. To such I 
would say that a good temporary house can be made from two 




Three Dollar Poultry Houses. Good summer buildings, and in a warm climate 
suitable for winter. 

piano boxes at a cost of about $3. The simplest way to make 
such a house is as follows : On a level place lay down two joists 
eight feet long. Take the boxes and carefully remove the boards 
on the tallest side. Spike the boxes to the joists, so that the open 
ends will face each other. With the boards you have taken out 
close up the gap between the boxes on the back and roof. Put 
a door in front, a pane of glass on either side of the door, or two 
panes in the door itself, complete laying the floor, put in a roost, 
cover the building with good roofing paper, and you have a house 
that will accommodate a dozen hens at a trifling cost. 



CHAPTER III. 



SANITATION AS A FACTOR IN EGG PRODUCTION. 



Sanitation is one of the most important factors in egg produc- 
tion. As blossom and fruit are the cuhnination of the tree's 
activities, so the egg is the cuhnination of the activities of the hen. 
The hen cannot lay heavily unless she is in perfect physical condi- 
tion. One of the ways in which disease first reveals itself is in 
the dropping off of the egg product. The poultryman who 
desires the largest return from his investment must make a care- 
ful study of sanitation. 

A SANITARY HOUSE. 

The style of house a man builds will depend something upon 
liis means and personal preferences. There are houses costing 
thousands of dollars, and there are houses built for less than a 
■dollar a running foot. I have known hens to do well in houses 
made of piano boxes, costing, when completed, three dollars 
apiece. But whether the house is cheap or dear, elaborate or sim- 
ple, it should have three characteristics : 

1. It must be dry. Dampness is fatal to fowls. Roup, 
rheumatism and kindred evils go with a damp house. The house 
should always be built in ample season so that it may thoroughly 
Ibe dried out before winter, and unless the ground on which it 
stands is as dry as powder it should have a board floor. 

2. The house should be warm. Nature has provided the 
Ihen with an ample covering of feathers, and she will not freeze 
even if the temperature falls far below zero. But under such 
conditions she will lay but few eggs. How can she? All her 
food goes toward making caloric, and there is no surplus for any- 
thing else. In a properly constructed house there is no need of 
artificial heat. A house should be so built that in the coldest 
^veather water will not freeze solid in it. If it does a curtain 
should be provided to drop down behind the hens and shut them 
in when they are on the roosts. 

3. Tlie house should be sunny. Hens love the sun. See 
them stand in the path of sunlight on the morning of a clear, 
bright winter dav. The house should face the south or south- 



19 

east, whenever possible, - There should not be too many windows, 
for windows let the heat out as easily as they let it in, and the 
difference in temperature between noon and night is too great. 

KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN. 

Cleanliness is the most important element in sanitation. Dis- 
-ease germs find in filth a congenial soil. The hen house cannot 
be kept too clean ! The room in which hens are confined plays 
many parts — it is their sleeping room, dining room, workshop, 
their bath room and water closet. Suppose a large family to be 
shut up in one room and obliged to use it for every purpose. Do 
you not see how careful they would have to be to escape disease? 
It is a wonder to me how hens manage to live through the winter 
in the majority of houses, to say nothing of laying eggs. 

The hen house should have its daily, weekly, monthly and 
yearly cleaning. The windows should be opened in the middle 
of the day for two or three hours on every day in winter when 
the sun is shining. The droppings under the roosts should be 
removed every morning! When poultrymen realize that poul- 
try manure is a virulent poison and should not be allowed to pol- 
lute the houses or the yards where the hens are kept, they will 
make a great step toward success. It takes but a few minutes to 
a house to remove the droppings, and the gain in looks and in 
wholesomeness is worth the cost. After the droppings are 
removed the dropping board should be sprinkled lightly with 
■earth, coal ashes or land plaster. 

Once a week, summer or winter, the drinking vessels should 
te scalded out ; and once a week in winter the litter should be 
shaken up, and if you have a board floor, the dust and dirt that 
settle to the bottom should be removed. If the floor is of earth 
the surface droppings should be taken out and the earth raked up. 

Once a month the cleaning should be more thorough. The 
litter should be renewed, and the floor swept. The roosts should 
be kerosened and in summer the walls around the roosts sprayed 
with kerosene or with a kerosene emulsion. Nest boxes should 
be emptied, painted with a good lice killer, and when dried out 
filled about one-third full of dry planer shavings. The dust box 
should receive attention. 

The annual cleaning is still more radical. On some 
sunny day in autumn — the earlier the better — shtit the hens out 
an their yards and begin work upon their quarters. Everything 



20 

movable in the house should be taken outside. Sweep the dust 
and cobwebs off the walls^ windows and ceiling. Sweep the 
floor, if you have one. The walls should then receive a generous 
coat of hot whitewash, put on with a spray pump to save time. A 
good receipt for whitewash is as follows : Take a sufficient quan- 
tity of lime, slack it slowly and wet enough to make into a thick 
putty. Let it stand in this shape a few hours or a few days, and 
then reduce it with water to the thickness desired. Add one pint 
of crude carbolic acid to every 12-quart pailful, and you will have 
a combination that will be death of lice. Sprinkle the floor with 
napcreol or some other disinfectant, kerosene the roosts, paint 
the nest boxes with some good lice killer, cover the dropping 
board with a coat of hot tar — in short give the house a thorough 
cleaning. 

LICE AND RED MITES. 

Relentless and persistent war must be waged against lice 
and red mites. The poultryman who keeps his house in the san- 
itary condition I have described is apt to think that the battle is 
won, that there is nothing more to do. Such is not the case. The 
foe is in hiding; it is not destroyed. There comes a falling off 
in egg production, and the poultryman wonders what is the cause. 
"Lice," says a too candid friend. The poultryman waxes indig- 
nant. "I'll give you a dollar apiece for every louse you find on 
my hens !" he exclaims. The friend takes a hen off the nest, and 
holds her up toward the light. "Pull apart the fluff around the 
vent," he commands. The poultryman does so, and. lo ! a covey 
of lice may be seen cutting to cover in the dense jungle of soft 
feathers. 

Where a big egg record is desired the hens must not be left 
to rid themselves of lice by their own efforts, but must be dusted 
from time to lime. The poultryman can make his own insect 
powder cheaper than he can buy it, but where only a few hens 
are kept it will not pay him to do so. Lambert's "Death to Lice" 
and Cyphers Lice Powder are standard preparations. If the 
poultryman wishes to make his own powder here are two formu- 
las that may be depended upon : 

I. Take one pint of slacked lime and stir into it one ounce 
liquid carbolic acid. Add to this mixture three pounds finely 
ground tobacco and mix thoroughly. This powder dusted 
wherever lice are will kill them. 2. Take five pounds strong 



21 

tobacco dust, one pound air-slacked lime, one-half pound naptha- 
lene — mix well together. This is sure death to hen lice, plant 
lice, lice on cattle, sheep ticks, bed bugs, ants, moths, etc. 

Lice paint is a liquid preparation, and is used for painting 
roosts, nests, etc. 

The fumes penetrate the feathers of the bird and kill the lice. 
Lee's Lice Killer and Cyphers Surekil Lice Paint are highly 
recommended. A good lice paint is made by dissolving one 
pound napthalene flakes in one gallon kerosene oil. 

Red mites make their home on the underside of the roosts and 
in cracks and crevices adjacent. They are quiet by day, but by 
night come forth to suck the life blood of their victims. The 
kerosene treatment, which I have already described, is sure death 
to red mites, and it is folly not to exterminate them. 

TO RID A HOUSE OF VERMIN. 
Sometimes through carelessness or neglect a house becomes 
infested with vermin, and then radical measures are necessary. 
In the first place the house should be thoroughly fumigated. 
Close every door and window, and see that there are no cracks 
or apertures to admit air. Burn a pound of sulphur for every lOO 
square feet of floor space in the house: thus a house loxio will 
require one pound of sulphur; one 20x10 two pounds, 
one 30x10 three pounds, and so on. The sulphur must be 
burned in iron vessels, which must be set on gravel or sand, 
so that there can be no danger from fire. Into each vessel put 
a handful of carpenter's shavings, saturated with kerosene, and 
upon these sprinkle the sulphur. Place the vessels in position, 
apply a match to the shavings, and hastily leave the house, clos- 
ing the door behind you. Do not open the house again for five 
hours, when every door and window should be thrown wide open. 
In case you feel any anxiety about 'fire, you can look in through 
a window once in a while to see that everything is going well. 

After the fumes of sulphur have been driven out, with a hand 
sprayer go through the house sending a spray of kerosene 
everywhere. These sprayers can be bought for half a dollar 
each, will last for years, and are simply invaluable. All the time 
you have been at work the hens have been in the yard outside, 
without food, and are now anxious to return to their home. Let 
them in, one by one, and as each enters catch her and dust her 
well with some good insecticide. 



22 

GIVE THE HENS PLENTY OF ROOM. 

There is a snare spread for beginners in the poultry business 
which catches nearly all : it is to crowd the birds. The pros" 
pective poultryman has a small flock and they have laid well. He 
begins to reason like this : "I have kept 12 hens in this pen the 
past year and they have netted me two dollars apiece. All I have 
to do to increase my income is to increase the number of my birds. 
If 12 hens have paid me S24, 50 hens will pay me $100." This 
seems logical, and the prospective poultryman goes to work and 
puts in 50 birds, only to find at the end of the year that the 50 
birds have not paid him so well as the 12 did. They have laid no 
more eggs, and sickness has been rife among them. More men 
lose money and retire from the poultry business in disgust from 
losses brought about by putting too many birds into one pen 
than from any other cause. 

The farmer would not think of putting two cows in one stall. 
He would not plant his potatoes in rows one foot apart. He 
would not shut up his family in one room. Why should he not 
display the same good sense in dealing with his fowls? Experi- 
ence has shown that 10 square feet of floor space is about the 
amount needed by each hen if she is to do her best. Where the 
house is kept perfectly clean, and where the hens have a chance 
to get out doors every pleasant day, they can get along with a 
somewhat smaller space. But for the best results in &g^ pro- 
ducing there must be plenty of room. The year I made the 
phenomenal record with my White Wyandottes — 214 eggs 
apiece from October to October — I knocked out the partitions 
between two pens and gave the flock double room. 

DUST BATH. 

Provide your hens with a dust bath. They will spend many 
happy hours wallowing in the warm earth and will keep them- 
selves reasonably free from lice. But do not trust to the dust 
bath entirely, for in the dead of winter the bath is often so cold 
that the biddies will not use it, and then lice will get in their work. 
Soil out of the garden, sifted through a common coal sieve, makes 
the best material for a dust bath that I know anything about. 
Next to this I rank coal ashes. The bath tub may be a sugar 
barrel, sawed off about a foot from the bottom and set in a sunny 
place, or one of those shallow square boxes that "Force" and 
other cereal foods come in, which may generally be obtained of 
the grocer for the asking. 



23 

EXERCISE. 
Hens need a reasonable amount of exercise. They do not 
need to be kept on the jump from morning until night, but they 
do need enough exercise to keep them in good trim. Where 
hens have free range they will attend to the matter of 
exercise themselves — although a hen having free range knows 
enough not to work when it is very hot or very cold. But when 
in confinement exercise must be provided for them. The floor 
of the hen house, or scratching shed, should be kept 
carpeted with six inches of litter in winter, and the fowls should 
be made to work for all the grain they eat. This litter, as I have 
already said, should be frequently shaken up and occasionally 
renewed. Straw, fresh hay and dead leaves make the best litter. 
Dry planer shavings are good if they are not allowed to become 
too fine. 

THE POULTRY YARD. 
In summer the hens should be out in their yards. The yard 
does not need to be very large. Indeed, unless the yard is large 
enough to grow all the green stuff that is needed for forage, a 
small yard is better than a large one, for it is more likely to be 
kept clean. Much money is spent each year for wire netting 
and foundation boards for fences that could be laid out to much 
better advantage in some other way. There should be shade of 
some kind in the yard. If the yard is small it should be raked 
and swept every week and the surface droppings removed. It 
should be spaded up from time to time. In the spring the sur- 
face soil to the depth of three or four inches should be removed 
and spread on the garden and replaced with fresh earth. If this 
is done there is much less danger of sickness with a small yard 
than with a big one that is never cleaned. 

GRIT, CHARCOAL AND OYSTER SHELLS. 
Nature has not provided fowls with teeth, and consequently 
they cannot masticate their food as can the higher animals. The 
food passes from the crop into the gizzard, where it is prepared 
for the intestines by trituration ; that is, as the food passes 
through the gizzard it is triturated, or ground up, by the little 
flinty particles which line that member. Unless the fowl is well 
supplied with grit the food passes into the intestines improperly 
prepared, and the result is indigestion. It is a great mistake not 



24 

to keep the fowls well supplied with grit. Charcoal is an alter- 
ative and tonic, and should be before the hens all the time. 
Oyster shells are necessary to supply the lime needed for the egg 
shells, and nothing can take their place. 

DRINKING WATER. 

Pure drinking" water is as necessary to the health and comfort 
of fowls as it is to the health and comfort of human beings, and 
should be supplied in abundance. The water dishes should be 
scalded out from time to time, and if a few drops of carbolic acid 
are added to the water with which they are scalded so much the 
better. Have your water dish as simple as possible. There is noth- 
ing better than a two-quart measure, made of galvanized iron, set 
on a little shelf by the door of the hen house and six inches from 
the floor. 

SANITATION IN SUMMER. 

It has been my observation that hens that are kept shut up in 
houses and yards suffer more from lack of sanitation in summer 
than in winter. There are a hundred directions printed 
for making the house warm to one for making it cool. 
And yet anyone who has watched a hen on a hot day 
in mid-summer, with mouth wide open and wings outspread, 
must realize that the poor creature is far from comfortable. 
Houses built on the colony community plan, such as I have 
already described, are ideal houses for summer as w^ell as for 
winter, as there is a wdndow in the front and on the end. As 
soon as warm weather comes I take out both windows letting the 
air circulate freely through the house. Poultry wire tacked on 
the outside of the window frame keeps the biddies in and the 
"varmints" out. 



CHAPTER IV. 



FEEDING FOR TWO HUNDRED EGGS A YEAR. 



We now have our hens in a dry, warm, sunny and sanitary 
house, have supplied them with faciHties for keeping clean, and 
of course want them to lay. What shall we feed and how much ? 
This is an important question, for unless a hen is supplied with 
material for egg production she cannot lay. She can no more 
jproduce eggs without the proper food than a factory can turn out 
the finished product without raw materials. What shall we feed 
and how much shall we feed, therefore? 

Let us again follow Lord Bacon's advice and interrogate 
Nature. Suppose we take a hen as she comes up to the house at 
the close of a long day in summer from foraging in the fields, kill 
her, take out her crop and analyze its contents. If we do so it is 
obvious that we shall obtain at least a part of the information we 
are after, for a hen lays in summer or not at all. 

What do we find as the result of our analysis? The crop we 
are dissecting has about as many articles in it as the average small 
boy's pocket, and they are equally miscellaneous. We find grains 
of corn that the hen has picked up about the barn, pieces of bread 
and table waste that she has found under the sink spout, clover 
leaves and tips of grass blades, bugs, worms and a mass of matter 
that we cannot resolve into the original elements. The first thing 
that impresses us as the result of our analysis is that the hen seeks 
VARIETY. The second is, that this variety admits of classifica- 
tion. This mass of miscellaneous matter that we found in the 
hen's crop can be arranged in three divisions: i. Grain. 2. 
Green food and vegetables. 3. Animal food — in the form of 
bugs, worms and so forth. The conclusion is irresistible, that 
these three elements must be combined if we would have a perfect 
ration. 

How shall we combine them? The answer is not so difficult 
as one would at first suppose. There are many ways. The hen 
makes a new combination every day. Perhaps the ideal way is 
to have no s'tereotyped method, but to study variety. If we com- 
bine grain, green food and meat in the daily ration, the hen can 
hardly fail to respond with a goodly output of eggs. 



26 

FEEDING FOR EGGS: HOW MUCH. 

The problem, as every poultryman knows, is not what to feed,, 
but how much. If you do not beheve this write to the editor of 
your favorite poultry paper and ask him how much food you shall 
give a flock of 15 hens, and see what he will say. It takes a 
great deal of skill to steer between overfeeding on the one hand 
and underfeeding on the other. I believe however that there is 
a scientific principle underlying die matter, and think that after 
a great deal of study and experimentation I have discovered the 
principle. 

In order to determine how much we should feed we must 
again interrogate Nature. Before we began to dissect the crop- 
of the hen we had killed, suppose we had put it in the scales to 
ascertain its weight. If the hen from which the crop was taken 
was of an American breed, if she had been running in the fields 
all day and just before she had been killed had been given all the 
corn that she would eat, her crop with its contents would weigh not 
far from six ounces. Allowing that two ounces of food have 
passed from the crop into the gizzard during the day, and from 
the gizzard into the intestines, it will be seen that when a hen is 
on the range, supplied with abundance of food, she will consume 
about eight ounces of food in the course of 24 hours. It would 
seem therefore that this is about the amount a hen needs to supply 
all the demands of her system and leave a margin for egg produc- 
tion. But before we settle down to this conclusion there are some 
things to be taken into consideration. On the range the hen has 
had plenty of exercise, and needs more food to supply the tissue 
lost than when in confinement. On the range food is more 
bulky and less nutritious than the food the hen receives in her 
pen. It contains a larger proportion of grass and vegetables. It is 
probable that in the pen, where the hen does not exercise so freely 
as she does on the range and where her food is more concentrated, 
she does not need so much food by one-fourth as she does when 
at liberty. Six ounces of food a day ought therefore to be ample 
to supply all the needs of a hen in confinement. 

Six ounces of food a day for a hen weighing six pounds seems 
at first sight an enormous quantity. In the same ratio a man 
weighing 160 would consume 10 pounds of food every 24 hours. 
But before we dismiss the matter as absurd let us consider a 
moment. The hen's food is not so concentrated as the man's. It 
contains far less nutriment in proportion to bulk. A considerable 



27 

proportion of it will be voided in the form of excrement. Then,' 
■ the hen has a task to perform such as is imposed upon few other 
creatures. She is expected to lay an egg weighing not less than: 
two ounces ; and an egg, as everyone knows, is one of the richest 
of food products. Deduct from the six ounces of food two 
ounces for waste and two ounces for egg production, and it will 
be seen that only two ounces are left to repair the tissues and 
maintain the temperature of the body. The laying hen needs a 
generous diet, and those doctrinaires who advocate keeping her in 
a state of semi-starvation have no support in reason for their 
theory. 

FEEDING FOR EGGS: WINTER METHOD. 

Having given my readers the principles that apply to feeding,. 
I purpose now to tell them how I put these principles into prac- 
tice. I desire to state here that I have no patent methods. I aim 
to apply common sense to the problem of egg production, as I dO' 
to other things ; but I do not claim to have a monopoly of wis- 
dom. There are doubtless other methods as good as mine. As I 
said in a preceding section, there are many possible combinations 
that will produce good results. T give you mine, and leave you 
to adopt it or not as you think best. 

From October to Alay I feed as follows : A mash the first 
thing in the morning. The mash is made as I am about to 
describe. Into an iron kettle holding 12 quarts I put two quarts 
(dry measure) cut clover, two quarts mixed feed or wheat bran, 
two quarts corn meal, one quart green ground bone or beef scraps, 
and one quart table scraps. The ingredients are thoroughly mixed 
together. I then take the kettle into the house and set it on 
the range where the metal can become warm. I next stir in a 
heaping teaspoon ful of coarse-fine salt, and in the coldest weather 
sprinkle in a little black pepper. Boiling water is then added to 
the mash in just sufficient quantity to moisten every particle and 
yet not have it sticky and sloppy. I consider the mash just right 
to feed when I can take some up in my hand and have it feel 
pleasantly warm (not hot), and dry enough so that it will not 
adhere to the palm or fingers. Some advocate dry feeding. I 
have no doubt the food is just as nourishing without the water, 
and after they become accustomed to it (or starved into it) the 
hens will eat it readily enough ; but before the food can be 
digested it must be moistened, and I think it better and safer to 



28 

moisten it for the birds myself than to allow them to do so. I 
do not believe the bird can moisten a large handful of dry mix- 
ture after it enters the crop so evenly as I can before it goes 
there. Then if the mash is about the temperature of the bird's 
body when it is fed (or, on cold mornings, a little higher) she 
will not have to use up her heat in raising it to that temperature. 

FEED ALL THE HENS WILL EAT UP CLEAN. 

I feed all the mash the hens will eat up clean in a reasonable 
time — say from 15 minutes to half an hour. Then I go through 
the pens and empty what is left (if anything )back into the kettle, 
to be fed the next day. At 1 1 o'clock I make a round of the pens 
to collect the eggs and look after the birds. On this trip I take 
with me green food of some sort — mangel v/urzels, cabbages, 
apples or onions — and leave in each pen the amount that experi- 
ence has shown me the birds will eat up clean. About two o'clock 
in the afternoon I make the round of the pens again. I have told 
you that in each pen I keep a male and 12 females, and on this 
trip in the early afternoon I throw down in the deep litter one 
quart (dry measure) of grain of some kind. The three grains I 
feed are wheat, cracked corn and oats. I study to give variety. 
On a mild afternoon I feed all oats or all whea^-, on a moderately 
cold afternoon, about half cracked corn and about half wheat or 
oats, — and on a very cold afternoon, cracked corn alone. When 
I get home from making pastoral calls it is generally dusk and the 
hens have gone to roost. Before supper I go through each pen to 
see that the birds are all right for the night. I empty the water 
•dishes, collect any eggs that may be in the nests, 
pause a moment in each house to see that the birds 
are breathing right (no colds nor bronchitis) and occa- 
sionally feel of the crops to see if I am feeding enough. 
If the crop is comfortably full — neither distended on the one hand 
nor nearly empty on the other — I conclude that the grain ration 
is about right so far as quantity is concerned. 

STUDY VARIETY. 
I have given the ingredients of my standard morning mash, 
"but I vary these ingredients from time to time. I don't want the 
same thing for breakfast every morning, and I don't believe my 
birds do. About twice a week I substitute gluten meal or linseed 
meal for green ground bone or meat scraps ; and once in a while 



29 

I give a breakfast of scalded oats — the oats scalded the night 
before and allowed to stand on the back of the stove where they 
will be warm and nice in the morning. Occasionally I give a 
breakfast made up of three parts by bulk of Biles' Fourex* and one 
part by bulk of corn meal. When I have plenty of small potatoes 
I make up a dish composed of boiled mashed potatoes, green 
ground bone and mixed feed or bran, which the fowls eat with 
avidity. I put in about four quarts potatoes, two quarts green 
ground bone and two quarts mixed feed or bran — season and 
serve hot. The table scraps, which I feed every morning, add 
variety to my standard ration. 

♦Biles' Fourex (XXXX) is a by-product from distillers' grains. Very rich in fat and 
protein. A valuable new food, when mixed with one-third its bulk of corn meal. 

FEEDING FOR EGGS— SUMMER METHOD. 

My method of feeding in summer is substantially the same as 
it is in winter, except that corn is struck entirely off my list and 
wheat and oats made to take its place. In summer, too, I give my 
hens grass and weeds from the garden for green food, instead of 
mangels, cabbages, apples and onions. We are fortunate here in 
Hampton in having close at hand an inexhaustible supply of food 
not usually found. Every northeast storm washes up on the beach 
tons and tons of seaweed, which may be had for the hauling. A 
load of seaweed dumped into a yard in summer will breed mil- 
lions of small white worms^ which the fowls eat greedily. These 
worms, or maggots, are said to be better for the hens than wheat, 
and certainly form a very cheap addition to the daily bill of fare. 

FEEDING FOR EGGS— CAUTION. 

In what goes before I have given my method of feeding, but 
this method will need to be adapted to individual cases. No hard 
and fast rule can be laid down. The poultryman must study 
his flock, and learn by experience — he must mix brains with his 
mash. The large criticism that will be made is that I feed too 
heavy and do not make my birds exercise enough. Bear in mind, 
however, that I have been talking about laying stock. Birds that 
are kept over for breeding are fed the same things that I feed 
my laying stock, but are not fed so much and are made to exer- 
cise more. In one case I am after eggs and a good many of 
them ; in the other, I am after fertile eggs — that will hatch strong 



30 

■chicks. If you notice that your birds are becoming fat and lazy, 
drop an occasional soft-shehed egg, and that their combs instead 
of being a healthy red are a dull purple, reduce the ration at once 
and set the birds to work — otherwise you will have dead hens on 
your hands. About the time of feeding the mash : it don't make 
a cent's worth of difference whether you feed morning, noon or 
night, so long as you feed enough and feed the right things. 

THE GOLDEN RULE FOR FEEDING. 

Giz'e the hen a sufficient variety and quantity to meet all the 
needs of her system and leave a margin for egg production. A 
warm mash in the morning, all she ivill eat with good relish in 15 
minutes to half an hour. Enough grain during the day so that 
she will go to roost with a crop moderately full, neither dis- 
tended on the one hand nor nearly empty on the other. Greeti, 
food, either in mash or separately. More heating food in zvinter 
and more of it than in summer. In general it may be said, that 
one ounce of food a day for each pound she zveighs is about right 
for the average hen. 

HOW SOME SUCCESSFUL MEN FEED. 

Mr. B. F. Dunlap, West Salisbury, N. H. — One of the most 
remarkable poultrymen that I know anything about is Mr. B. F. 
Dunlap of West Salisbury, N. H., who keeps from 450 to 500 
head of laying stock (White Wyandottes and Rhode Island 
Reds) and clears up a profit of $1,000 yearly. Mr. Dunlap is 
postmaster and proprietor of a country store, and all the time he 
can devote to his hens is what he can snatch from his business. 
Mr. Dunlap lives five miles from the nearest railroad, and makes 
his profits from eggs, which he markets in Boston. 

"Every day something dift'erent," is the principle he goes on, 
as expressed in his own words. He has four combinations, which 
he names 'from the leading article in each : Boiled potatoes, waste 
bread, clover hay, whole oats. The four combinations are as fol- 
lows, enough kettlesf ul being mixed up to feed the whole flock : 

1. Boiled potatoes, soaked over night, 8 quarts; gluten, 
soaked over night, 3 quarts. In the morning add mixed feed, 2 
quarts ; corn and oats, ground and mixed together, 2 quarts. 

2. Waste bread, soaked over night, 8 quarts ; beef scraps, 2 
quarts ; corn and oats, 2 quarts. 



31 

3- Clover hay, soaked over night. In the morning add 2 
quarts flour middlings, 2 quarts boiled beef and bone, 2 quarts 
corn and oats. 

4. Whole oats, soaked over night, 8 quarts ; gluten, soaked 
over night, 4 quarts. In the morning add 2 quarts shorts, i quart 
beef and bone, 2 quarts corn and oats. 

The mash is fed in the morning, and the hens are given all 
they will eat up clean in ten minutes. The second and last meal 
■comes at noon, and is grain of some kind. 

The day Mr. Dun!ap feeds boiled potatoes the hens have wheat. 
The day he feeds waste bread they have wheat or cracked corn. 
The day he feeds clover hay they have cracked corn. And the 
day he feeds oats and gluten they have cracked corn or buckwheat. 
The grain is thrown into the sand and litter in each pen, and the 
hens have to scratch for it. Mr. Dunlap does not give the hens 
all the grain they can eat, but as much as they can digest and 
come to breakfast the next morning with an empty crop and a 
good appetite. Whole turnips are kept in the pens all the time, 
so that the hens can get a taste of green food v/hen they want it. 



Mr. G. M. Gowell of the Maine Experiment Station is doing 
some excellent work with hens. Mr. Gowell is the originator of 
the trap nest described in this book, and keeps individual records. 
He breeds White Wyandottes and Barred Plymouth Rocks, and 
. long ago found the 200 itg^ hen. He feeds as follows : 

Twenty pullets and two cockerels are kept in each lot. 

Each pen of 22 receives one pint of wheat, in the deep litter 
early in the morning. At 9.30 a.m. one-half pint of oats is fed 
to them in the same way. At i p.m. one-half pint of cracked corn 
is given in the litter as before. At 3 p.m. in winter and 4 p.m. in 
the summer they are given all the mash they will eat up clean, 
in half an hour. 

The mash is made of the following mixture of meals : — 
200 pounds wheat bran ; 100 pounds corn meal ; 100 pounds wheat 
middlings ; 100 pounds linseed meal ; 100 pounds meat meal or fine 
meat scraps. Part of the year the linseed meal is omitted, and the 
amount of meat meal doubled. The mash contains one-fourth 
of its bulk of clover leaves and heads, secured from the feeding 
floor in the cattle barn. The clover is thoroughly soaked with hot 
water. The mash is made quite dry. Cracked bone, oyster shells, 
clean Q-rit and water are at all times before them. Two larsfe 



32 

mangels are fed to the birds in each pen daily in winter, and 
green food in plenty in summer. 



C. Bricault, M.D.V., of Andover, Mass., is another man who 
has succeeded in obtaining the 200-egg hen — some of his White 
Wyandottes having considerably exceeded this figure. Dr. 
Bricault relies more upon inheritance than upon any special bill 
of fare in getting the 200-egg hen, but his method of feeding, as 
given in his own words, is excellent. 

"Morning. — One of the following grains is scattered in the 
litter : oats, wheat, corn, barley, about one handful to two hens. 
We then water the hens, giving warmed water on very cold days ; 
that is, water with the chill taken off. 

"Noon. — Grain as in the morning, but less, about one handful 
to three hens. We feed a dift'erent grain at every meal. At this 
meal we give the green food of the day (cabbage one day, beets 
the next, scalded clover or whatever we have on hand), but they 
get green food every day. Sometimes we give a feed of green 
cut bone as a variety in place of grain ; but we do not feed cut 
bone regularly. 

"Night. — Our mash is fed at night, and we give the hens all 
they will eat. We make the mash as follows : bran, corn meal, 
ground oats, equal parts by bulk, well mixed together. These 
meals are put in the trough with enough boiling water to make 
the mass 'wet dry,' and covered over with a bag and left to cook 
in their own heat; when cool it is fed. We feed the mash every 
second day. We feed it in long troughs, and give all they will 
eat up clean in half an hour. The days on which the mash is 
omitted we give one of the above mentioned grains — one handful 
to each hen. 

"A self-feeding trough is placed in every pen, divided into 
three compartments : in one there is grit, in the other oyster shells, 
the third contains a mixture of meat and the ground grains used 
in the mash, half meat and half grain. This last makes a good 
mixture to serve as lunch between meals. 

"We also keep a small piece of rock salt in each pen for the 
hens to pick at. This can be placed in a slatted box, with the slats 
about 2 inches apart. 

"We believe in regularity in feeding and practice it. 

"After the hens have gone to roost at night, we scatter the 
morning feed in the litter so the hens can go to scratching as soon 
as they come off the roost in the morning." 



33 

FEEDING FOR EGGS: A WOMAN'S WAY. 

"In the morning I feed a mash made of about two parts bran 
to one part ground oats. For every 50 hens I put in two quarts, 
good measure, of green ground bone ; also sotne vegetable, well 
cooked and mashed. This latter I vary as much as possible, 
using water in which vegetables have been cooked to moisten the 
mash, providing it is not so strongly flavored as to be disagree- 
able to the hens, as sometimes happens if turnips have been 
cooked in it. The proportion of vegetable matter giv^en to hens 
in winter is much smaller than that given in summer, and also 
smaller, than the other ingredients in the mash. In summer cut 
grass or clover and vegetable tops are substituted for the roots 
given in winter and are fed separately whenever convenient. 
Dried beef scraps are substituted in summer for the ground bone 
in winter and are fed in smaller quantities, perhaps half the 
amount. I season w'ith salt rather less than I would for my 
family. I never use pepper, but occasionally ginger. When 
using pepper and seasoning highly with salt, I have always had 
more or less hens die of liver trouble in spring. My mash is 
always thoroughly scalded and frequently well cooked, as in 
winter I often mix it the night before and let it remain in the oven 
over night. Animal meal I consider a cheap food which will 
make hens lay ; but I cannot use it, even in much smaller quanti- 
ties than the rule, on account of its laxative quahties. 

"My hens always have warm water in clean drinking vessels 
in winter and cool water in summer. 

"The second and last feed comes after dinner, when I hoe or 
rake into the litter on hen house floor two parts whole oats to one 
part wheat. The litter is six or eight inches deep, and the feed 
is given generously enough to make them feel rewarded for 
scratching up to the next afternoon. 

"Oyster shells I prefer to throw in fresh every day, especially 
in the latter part of the winter, when they get too busy laying to 
eat the proper amount of lime. 

''A neighbor adopted my way of feeding, but with pullets 
bought of me failed to get like results, I attribute the failure to 
the fact that he was afraid of wasting feed, and if he could possi- 
bly find a grain would not feed more. In the morning I feed all 
the hens will eat with a relish. — Miss L. M. S., Auburn, Me. 



CHAPTER V. 



FOODS AND FOOD VALUES. 



Readers of the poultry and agricultural press are continually 
coming across expressions the meaning of which they but dimly 
comprehend. They read of "narrow" and ''wide" rations, "pro- 
teids" and "carbohydrates," "concentrates" and "coarse foods." All 
this in most cases is so much Greek. I have talked with many 
intelligent poultry keepers, but have rarely found one who could 
tell why he fed as he did, apart from the fact that his ration had 
justified itself in experience. And yet a little knowledge of the 
elementary principles of scientific feeding may be of great value. 
It will enable a man to feed more economically, as he can often 
substitute for a high-priced food one much lower in price, and 
also to feed so that he can secure the results he is after without 
loss of time or waste in any way. It is my purpose in this chap- 
ter to make the matter of foods and feeding so simple that any- 
one can understand it. 

PROTEIDS— THINGS THAT BUILD UP. 

The food that is eaten has three functions to perform. The 
first is to build up. In the animal body a process of waste and 
repair is continually going on. Old tissues are breaking down 
and being replaced by new ones. It is evident that if an exact 
balance is to be preserved considerable food must be eaten. But 
besides this process of waste and repair another process may be 
going on — that of growth and manufacture. In the chick, for 
instance, the frame is being built up rapidly, the feathers are com- 
ing out, and the flesh and muscles receive their daily increment. 
In the laying hen the egg is being formed. Now there are cer- 
tain elements in the food that is taken that go to repair the waste 
and build up the body ; they also enter largely into the manufac- 
tured product — the milk of the cow and the egg of the hen. 
These elements are called proteids. They are absolutely neces- 
sary to the life and health of the animal, and must be furnished in 
sufficient quantities or decay and death will ensue. 



35 

CARBOHYDRATES— THINGS THAT WARM UP. 

Besides building- up food is required for another purpose — to 
warm up. Tlie temperature of the human body is 98 degrees; 
that of the hen's body, 103 degrees. To maintain the tempera- 
ture of the body food must be burned in the stomach just as coal 
is burned in the furnace. You have all noticed on a cold day in 
winter how difficult it is to keep the temperature of a room up to 
70, and how much fuel is required to do it. And yet the temper- 
ature of the body must be kept 28 degrees above this, or the result 
will be a chill from which we may never recover. 

There are certain elements in the food that go directly to the 
production of heat, and these are called carbohydrates. They 
include sugar, starch and gums (sometimes called "nitrogen-free 
extract"), and the cellulose or fibre (the coarse or woody part 
of a plant) which, however, is indigestible. The cereals are espe- 
cially rich in carbohydrates. We sometimes read that the farm- 
ers in Kansas and Nebraska, in years when the corn crop is exces- 
sive, use corn for fuel ; and that is precisely what we do when we 
feed corn to our hens in the winter. The corn is the fuel which 
the hen burns to maintain the temperature of her body at 103. 
Such being the case, the importance of a warm, snugly-built house 
to keep down fuel bills becomes at once apparent. 

In a well conducted manufacturing establishment the fuel 
that is burned serves a double purpose: it not only generates the 
steam that warms the building, but it also generates the steam that 
drives the machinery. Perfectly analogous to this is the service 
rendered by the food elements that we denominate carbohydrates. 
They not only keep the body at a proper temperature, but they 
also furnish the energy by which the work is done. 

FATS— THINGS THAT ARE STORED UP. 
The careful and prudent head of a household is not content to 
"live from hand to mouth," as the saying is. He does not buy his 
coal from day to day, his flour a few pounds at a time, and his 
vegetables as he needs them to use. On the contrary he has a 
well-stocked cellar, in which are enough supplies to last for some 
time. The thrifty wage-earner does not spend quite all he earns, 
but saves a certain amount each week which he deposits in a sav- 
ings bank or invests in life insurance. Nature, our thrifty mother, 
is not content that her children shall live from day by day; 
so she lays by a reserve from which they can draw in time of need. 



36 

This reserve is the fat which she wraps around the tissues and 
with which she encases some of the organs. 

There is one very curious thing that is true of the different 
food elements — they can take the place of each other, to some 
extent. This is not true of the proteids. Nothing can take their 
place. But it is true of the carbohydrates and the fats. At the 
New York State Experiment Station a cow was fed for 95 days 
upon food from which the fat had been extracted as thoroughly 
as possible. In spite of this absence of food fat the cow contin- 
ued to secrete milk similar to that produced on a normal ration. 
Nearly sixty-three pounds of fat was yielded in the milk during 
the ninety-five days, and the cow gained forty-seven pounds dur- 
ing that time, being judged a much fatter cow at the end than at 
the beginning. This experiment would seem to be conclusive 
that the milk fat was produced cjuite largely, if not entirely, from 
the carbohydrates of the food. On the other hand, so well is it 
settled that fat may be converted into carbohydrates, that it is the 
common practice to multiply the fat by 2.25 to get its equivalent 
in carbohydrates in making up an equation. 

Besides these three principal food elements which I have enu- 
merated there are subordinate food elements as follows : Ash, rep- 
resenting the mineral ingredients after a food is burned. These 
ashes consist of lime, potash, soda, magnesia, iron, phosphoric 
acid, and sulphuric acid. Water, present in all foods to some 
extent. Fibre or cellulose, the coarse or woody part of a plant 
(already mentioned under the head of carbohydrates, but more 
appropriately coming here). 

A BALANCED RATION. WIDE AND NARROW 
RATIONS. 
We are now in a position to frame our definitions. A bal- 
anced ration is a ration in which a!i the elements required to meet 
the needs of the animal for the time being are present in right 
proportion. It will be seen by this definition that a balanced 
ration is not a fixed and invariable thing. A ration that is cor- 
rectly balanced for chicks is not balanced for laying stock, and a 
ration that is balanced for laying stock is not balanced for birds 
that are being fattened for market. It has been found by experi- 
ence that the ration 1.2 (one part protein to two parts carbohy- 
drates) is about right for chicks; the ration 1.4 is about right for 
laying stock; and the ration 1.6 is about right for fattening. In 



37 

making up the ration the ingredients are weighed, not measured, 
and the fat is multiplied by 2.25 (or 2^) to reduce it to carbo- 
hydrates. 

A wide ration is one in which the protein is largely exceeded 
by the carbohydrates ; a narrow ration is one in which the protein 
and carbohydrates are more nearly equal. As a matter of fact, 
anything exceeding i : 6 would be called a wide ration, and any- 
thing under it a narrow one. 

SOME THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND. 

The reader who has followed me carefully will see how abso- 
lutely impossible it is to feed a flock of hens by rule. Common 
sense must come in. A ration that would be correctly balanced 
for one day would not be balanced for the next. For instance, 
on a very cold day in winter we burn twice as much coal to keep 
warm as on a mild day ; and on the same day the flock would 
require a much wider ration (more carbohydrates or warming up 
food) than on a mild day or in midsummer. 

Fortunately the hen has considerable power of adjustment, 
and so survives our well-meaning but bungling and imperfect 
eflforts to feed her scientifically. If we do not feed enough, she 
draws upon her reserve ; and if we feed too much she has the 
power of passing the excess through the body unassimilated. It is 
for this reason that I advocate feeding generously. Nature can 
take care of a surplus if it is not too great, but the only way in 
which she can meet a deficit is by drav\dng on her reserve. 

The reader, too, will now see why it is that one poultryman 
feeds one way, and another another, and both have good results. 
The principal thing is to get your ratios with sjLicculent, nutritious 
food ; and if you do this your hens are sure to respond with a 
goodly output of eggs. 

GREEN FOOD. 

What is the value of green food in the daily ration ? Its great 
value is that it makes it more digestible ; it lightens up the ration 
and makes it possible for the gastric juices to permeate every 
particle. Then, too, green food often contains certain mineral 
salts that the birds need, in a soluble and digestible form. Green 
food should form a portion of the daily bill of fare, either in the 
mash or separately. "In the winter and early spring months, 
mangel-wurzels, if properly kept, may be fed to good advantage. 



38 

In feeding these beets to flocks of hens a very good practice is 
simply to split the root lengthwise with a large knife. The fowls 
will then be able to pick out all the fresh, crisp food from the 
exposed cut surface. Cabbages can be grown cheaply in many 
localities and make excellent green food so long as they can be 
kept fresh and crisp. Kale and beet leaves are equally as good 
and are readily eaten. Sweet apples are also suitable, and, in fact, 
almost any crisp, fresh, green food can be fed with profit. The 
green food, in many instances, may be cut fine and fed with the 
soft food, but, as a rule, it is better to feed separately during the 
middle of the day, in such quantities that the fowls have about all 
they can eat at one time." 

CLOVER AS A FOOD. 
Clover is the green food, par excellence. Second-crop clover 
is best. It should be cut just as it is coming into bloom, or a 
little before, when there is a profusion of tender green leaves 
and the stalks have not become woody and dry. Great care 
should be taken in curing the crop. Clover for hens should be 
cut into short lengths, say one-fourth of an inch, and may be fed 
alone at noon. Or it may be mixed in the morning mash with 
boiling water. It is not necessary to steep it over night as some 
do. Clover meal is excellent, but somewhat expensive. 



39 



> o 

a e " ' • 



5 — k'b f» 



^9 






Hd£- 



5 

5" 









td 

50 fj Ct Q 



X3 ?i to S <5^ 

•t 03 £0 "r to ^ 









C CD 



•^ 



Offl ^ 

D S= S. en cr«- 












5! 


go 











p 


s 






5 


p 


p 
3 


M 






1 










p 



p 


n 


•-< 


g 


Q 


X 


5 


p 








n 


^ 




s 





v; 


ct 


ct 


E- 


E 


^ 









a 










p 
















P 


» 


IB 





>TdOO 
n $9 c 
p CT 2 

^ CO « 

ct> a 



000 
cc 05 rf^ 



000 

GO -J CO 
Ol O O 

CD (-r^ CO 
S- O 2. |_, 



O Ot 

000 

01 O" O 

^^^ O 



ce o 2. I— I 



CCD 
CD . 



00:1 




12 00 >*» 




Ol-S 




^^ 


n 






&f^ ii 


t> 










d c" CD 




"'OS' 






-< 


c-t^ 


?^ 




P 








CD 




OS 




* 




CO 00 00 




Ul 01 -~s 








^ p 




ggg- 





^c'sr 


iri 


^ g 




" p 


< 



Ha 

w 

CO 

K 
O 

I— I 

I— ( 

O 
H 



o 
o 

O 

O 
o 

Cd 
O 

W 

03 



40 



TABLE SHOWING COMPOSITION AND VALUATION OF 
PRINCIPAL FOODS. 



FOOD STUFFS. 







Composition. 






a 




^ 




0) 


i^ 
















^ 


^ 


< 


Ph 


fe 






Protein Foods. 

Cottonseed meal 

Cleveland flax meal 

Linseed meal (new process). 
Linseed meal (old process) . . 

Chicago gluten meal 

Cream gluten meal 

Biles XXXX grains 

Malt Sprouts 

Dried brewers grains 

Wlieat middlings (flour) 

Wheat middling (standard).. 

Mixed feed 

Wheat bran 

H-O dairy feed 

Animal Foods. 

Beef Scrap 

Pork Scrap 

Dried blood 

Green bones 

Starchy Foods. 

Corn meal 

Corn and col) meal 

Hominy meal 

Ground oats 

Ground barley 

Corn and oat feed 

Victor corn and oat feed 

H-O horse feed 

Quaker dairy feed 

Shumacher's stock feed , 

Oat feed (average) 

Cereals. 

Corn , 

Wheat 

Oats 

Barley 

Buckwheat 

Bye 

Rice 

Milk. 

Whole milk 

Skim milk, raised 

Skim milk, separated 

Buttermilk 



7.0 


6.5 


45.4 


6.1 


24.5 


10.5 


9.0 


5.3 


38.3 


8.8 


36.2 


2.4 


fl.O 


5.5 


36.9 


8.9 


37.2 


2.5 


8.5 


5.2 


34.6 


8.6 


36.8 


6.3 


9.5 


1.0 


37.2 


2.2 


47 9 


2.2 


9.0 


0.9 


34 3 


2.2 


51.6 


2.0 


S.O 


1.8 


34.7 


13.6 


31.4 


10.5 


11.0 


5.8 


27.1 


11.9 


42.6 


1.6 


8.0 


3.8 


23.1 


10.8 


49.4 


4.9 


10.0 


3.2 


19.4 


3.2 


59.4 


4.8 


10.0 


43 


18.1 


7.0 


55.6 


50 


10.0 


5.3 


17.1 


8.4 


54.6 


4.6 


10.0 


6.2 


16.2 


10.1 


53.1 


4.4 


8.0 


3.6 


18.3 


12.7 


53.4 


4.0 


1.3 


8.0 


.58.0 






32.9 


0.8 


2 2 


57.4 






39.6 


6.7 


6.6 


65.1 




5.3 


16.3 


6.9 


24.5 


22.3 






16.5 


14.0 


1.4 


9.5 


1.9 


69.9 


3.3 


U.O 


1.4 


89 


6.7 


68.4 


36 


9.0 


2.6 


11.2 


4.2 


64.2 


8.5 


12.0 


3.3 


11.4 


8.7 


60.8 


3.8 


13.0 


2.3 


11.3 


57 


65.8 


1.9 


10.0 


3.0 


9.1 


10.0 


6t.7 


3.2 


10.0 


3.5 


8.7 


11.0 


63.1 


3.7 


9.0 


3.2 


12.5 


9.8 


62.1 


3.4 


8.0 


4.6 


13.2 


16.8 


54.3 


3.1 


8.0 


4.1 


11.5 


11.4 


60.4 


4.6 


7.0 


5.3 


7.8 


21.8 


55.3 


2.8 


10.9 


1.5 


10.4 


1.9 


70.3 


5.0 


10.5 


1.8 


11.9 


1.8 


71.9 


2.1 


11.0 


3.0 


11.8 


9.5 


59.7 


5.0 


109 


2.4 


12.4 


2 7 


69.8 


1.8 


12.6 


2.0 


10.0 


8.7 


64.5 


2.2 


11.6 


1.9 


10.6 


1.7 


72.5 


1.7 


12.4 


0.4 


13.0 


0.2 


23.9 


23.6 


87.2 




3.5 




4.8 


3.7 


90.4 
90.6 




3.1 

■ 2.9 




4.7 
5.2 


0.8 
0.3 


90.1 




3.9 




4.0 


1.0 



CHAPTER VI. 



EGGS IN FALL AND WINTER. 



Unless a man breeds fancy fowls and has a good market in the 
spring for eggs for hatching, the gilt-edged profits come from 
eggs produced in late fall and early winter. There is no com- . 
modity that I know anything about wdiere the price fluctuates so 
much in the course of a year as it does on eggs. In the local 
market eggs range in price from 12 to 15 cents in April and May 
to 30 to 40 cents around Thanksgiving. In spite of all that has 
been written and said about eggs in the late fall and early win- 
ter, there is always a shortage about this time ; and there is likely 
to be for years to come. 

The reason why it is so difficult to get eggs in late fall or early 
winter is that it is against Nature. The primary object of a bird 
in laying eggs is not to please the palate of the epicure or add to 
the profits of the owner, but to reproduce her kind. Now it is a 
universal law that all creatures in a wild state bring forth their 
young at that season of the year when food is most abundant. 
The hen has been domesticated for more than thirty centuries, but 
back of this is a period of much greater extent when she was wild. 

No artificial breeding or habitat can ever completely eradicate 
aboriginal instincts. The natural time for a hen to lay is in the 
spring and early summer. It is evident, therefore, that in work- 
ing for eggs in fall and early winter we are working against 
Nature, and can never hope for that complete success that w^e may 
expect when we are working with Nature and Nature is work- 
ing with us. 

WINTER EGGS COME FROM PULLETS. 
Eggs in the fall and winter come principally from pullets. 
At Thanksgiving time, when eggs are at their maximum, the 
hens have not fully recovered from their moult. They may lay 
a few eggs, but nothing great. Those wdio get winter eggs in 
large quantities are those who follow the advice of this book and 
plan to have at least two-thirds of their laying stock pullets. But 
not every pullet is a layer. It is only those that are well grown 
and have been handled right that are now giving a good account 



42 

of themselves. The first great rule for winter eggs is as follows : 
Get out your chicks early and keep them coming from the day 
they break the shell down to the day they go into the laying pens 
in the fall 

AMERICAN BREEDS BEST. 
The breed has something to do with it. As a rule the Amer- 
ican breeds are the best winter layers. I know that this state- 
ment will be challenged, and that instances will be given where 
the Mediterraneans or Asiatics have equalled or surpassed the 
Americans in Qgg production ; but the statement will stand. The 
Mediterraneans are thin feathered and are very susceptible to 
climatic conditions. A sudden cold snap will often cause the 
egg product to drop to zero. The Asiatics, on the other hand, 
are thick feathered, but slow in maturing — they do not get ready 
to lay until well on towards spring. The man who wants winter 
eggs will make no mistake if he fills his pens Vv'ith well matured 
pullets of the American class. 

A WARM HOUSE ESSENTIAL. 

In olden times hens were not expected to lay in 
winter. No wonder they did not! They were not 
hatched out until June, and were expected to pick up 
their living in the fields. After it become too cold for them to 
roost in trees they were allowed to stay in the barn nights, roost- 
ing on the big beams, or were thrust down into the noisome barn 
cellar. A few handfuls of corn were thrown down to them from 
time to time, and if they wanted to quench their thirst they could 
eat snow or break the ice in the horse trough. It is a marvel they 
ever lived through the winter, to say nothing of laying eggs. 
Even to-day, when poultry keeping is so much better understood, 
the importance of a warm house is not half enough appreciated. 

The West Virginia Experiment station a fev/ years ago scien- 
tifically demonstrated the importance of a warm, house in the pro- 
duction of winter eggs. "Two houses situated side by side and 
similar in all respects were selected for the experiment. The 
houses had been constructed with matched siding and shingle 
roofs. Before the experiment began, one house was sheathed on 
the inside with boards and then thoroughly papered so as to cover 
all the cracks. The experiment began November 24th, and con- 
tinued for five periods of 30 days each. The two flocks were fed 



43 

the same kind and amount of food. The total number of eggs 
produced per loo hens in the warm house was 5,239, while in the 
cold house 100 hens laid but 4,136 eggs in the same time, a bal- 
ance in favor of the warm house flock of 1,103 ^S§^ worth in the 
local market 24 cents per dozen, or $22.06. It is thus seen that 
the additional expense for increasing the warmth of the house 
was a very profitable investment." 

FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS. 
Readers of the preceding chapter of this book will need no 
special instruction in the production of winter eggs, but it will do 
no harm to repeat the substance of what I have said. To get 
eggs in winter, or, indeed, at arty season of the year, it is neces- 
sary to feed generously. One cannot get something for nothing, 
and if one is to get plenty of eggs from his hens he must supply 
them with the raw materials for egg making. . "Overcrowding 
and underfeeding are two serious hindrances to a good egg yield ; 
but underfeeding is by far the more serious hindrance to a profit- 
able winter's work with the layers." So the second great rule for 
winter eggs is : Giz'e plenty of good wholesome food and give 
variety, if you ivant winter layers. 

EGG FOODS AND TONICS. 
The question comes up in this connection as to the expediency 
of using egg foods and tonics where winter eggs are wanted. On 
the one hand there are some who recommend their use ; on the 
other there are those who unqualifiedly condemn. Theoretically, 
I suppose, it is better not to use them ; but, actually, they may be 
used occasionally to good advantage. I suppose it would be bet- 
ter for a man never to overwork, but to consume each day only so 
much energy as he made. But, as a matter of fact, there come 
occasions into the life of every busy man when he is compelled to 
work 16 or 18 hours at a stretch, day after day. and draw upon 
his reserve. Nature allows him to do this, but only on condition 
that he make up the deficit as soon as he can. Nature is like a 
bank that allows a good customer occasionally to overdraw. It 
will do no harm to stimulate a healthy, well-grown bird a little 
when eggs are high ; but to use stimulants and condition powders 
habitually is to defeat the very purpose for which they are made — 
they either kill the hen or she becomes immune and no longer 
responds. 



44 

$ioo.oo in GOLD: HOW MR. S. D. FOX WON IT. 

Some years ago the manufacturers of a well-known condition 
powder advertised a "Gold Coin Premium Contest," for the best 
egg record during the winter months, in which $200.00 in gold 
was to be given to 16 contestants. There was one first prize of 
$100.00, five prizes of $10.00 each, and ten prizes of $5.00 each. 
The contest was open to the world. The conditions were that 
each contestant must keep not less than 12 hens, must buy at least 
one dollar's worth of condition powder, and must make a full four 
months' trial. The time for the close of the contest was set at 
April I. The first prize was won by Mr. S. D. Fox of Wolfeboro, 
N. H. Unfortunately Mr. Fox kept no records other than those 
he sent in, and in a general clearing up of the central office a short 
time since all records relating to the contest were destroyed. 
Consequently I am unable to give the figures, but it may be 
enough to state that out of hundreds of contestants Mr. Fox 
won the first prize. I will give his methods, as nearly as possible 
in his own words. 

"That fall," said Mr. Fox, 'T had a master fine lot of hens, — 
White Wyandottes, with just a dash of Leghorn blood in 'em to 
make 'em lay. They were hatched early, and 'I began to get eggs 
from them in October. When I saw the contest advertised I 
thought I vv^ould enter. I didn't expect to get the first prize, but 
thought possibly I might get one of the others. So I bought a 
dollar's worth of condition powder of C. W. Hicks, who then 
kept the Wolfeboro Drug Store, and started m. I remembered 
reading in an old book the following sentence: 'There is nothing 
that will make hens lay equal to cayenne pepper and milk.' I had 
a cow that came in that fail, which was giving about 16 quarts of 
milk a day. I made up a pen of 20 of the likeliest looking pullets, 
and started in. I fed them in the morning a mash made of equal 
parts of corn meal, ground oats, and bran. I didn't know any- 
thing about meat meal or ground bone in those days, and so I 
put in instead a handful of linseed meal and what scraps we had 
left from the table. I mixed this mash up with warm skim milk. 
Two or three times a week I shook into the milk a teaspoonful of 
cayenne pepper. I gave the hens all the mash they would eat up 
clean. At noon I fed oats, and at night corn. I gave the hens 
all the milk they would take. I gave it to 'em sweet; I gave it 
to 'em sour; I gave it to 'em in the form of curd. There were 
days when they had no water — nothing but milk. Lay? You 



45 

never saw anything like it ! I wish I could remember how many 
they laid. Anyway they laid enough to bring me the first prize 
of $100.00. Give me cayenne pepper and skim milk, and I'll risk 
but what I can make hens lay every time." 

MR. FOX'S HEN PERSUADER. 

"I can give you a receipt for an egg food and tonic that will 
do the business," said Mr. Fox. *M sent off once for an egg food 
that was highly advertised, and the first thing I knew it had killed 
five hens. No, I guess I won't give you the name. Maybe I was 
a little too anxious to have 'em lay, and fed too much of it. But 
this one I can vouch for. It is the greatest hen persuader I know 
anything about. I fed it one winter to 72 hens, and one day got 
68 eggs. Five days in succession from the same flock I got 64 
eggs. Take ten pounds bone meal, ten pounds beef scraps, five 
pounds fenugreek, two pounds sulphur, two pounds charcoal, one- 
half pound cayenne pepper, one-half pound salt. Mix and keep. 
Put a half pint in the mash every morning, for 20 hens. When 
you feed this egg food, feed no meat meal or meat scraps, and 
do not salt the mash. You will get the mixture right if you 
remember that the combined weight of the ingredients is 30 
pounds. It costs about a dollar and a half to make it." 

TO START PULLETS TO LAYING IN THE FALL. 

When pullets are old enough to lay and do not lay they need 
some slight shock or change to start them in. The majority of 
those who rear chickens give them free range, or as near free 
range as possible, during the summer months. This is correct. 
But after they get their growth their energies need to be directed 
to egg production and not run off in useless exercise. Accord- 
ingly as early as October ist — if not before — the pullets should be 
taken from the range and put into the laying houses. Here their 
range should be restricted. More meat meal or ground bone may 
be advantageously introduced into their ration, and a stimulant 
may be given in the shape of cayenne pepper or condition powder. 
This treatment soon induces egg production, if they are of the 
"bred-to-lav" kind. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE SEX ELEMENT IN EGG PRODUCTION. 



Why do hens lay at all? This is the most momentous ques- 
tion that confronts the poultrvman. If he can answer, the ques- 
tion correctly he is in a position to proceed intelligently and sys- 
tematically with eg-g production. If he cannot answer it, or has 
never even thought of it, he is in no condition to get a large and 
uniform egg yield. He may make a hit occasionally, but there 
will be years when eggs will be few and far between. 

It is evident to the most casual observer that hens do not lay 
for their own amusement — for the fun it gives them. Anyone 
who has ever watched a hen straining to discharge an egg, or who 
has taken an egg out of a nest blood stained from some internal 
hemorrhage, must realize that the passage of an egg by a hen is 
not for her altogether an agreeable operation. Doubtless there is 
a sense of relief when the egg is expelled — but so there is when a 
man has had an ulcerated tooth extracted. Nor do hens lay to 
add to the profits of their owner. It is a common complaint, and 
one in which there is a good deal of truth, that hens lay only when 
eggs are cheap and shut down when they are dear! No, hens 
do not lay for fun or to add to the bank account of their owner ; 
they lay for an altogether different purpose. 

Implanted in the core and center of every living thing is the 
desire to reproduce its kind. It seems to be the design of nature 
that the species shall be perpetuated at any cost. "Multiply and 
replenish the earth" is a command addressed to plants, animals 
and birds as well as to man. So imperious is this instinct of 
reproduction, so irresistible, that some of the lower orders prop- 
agate at the cost of their own lives. 

The hen lays to gratify the imperious in5tinct of reproduc- 
tion. In her wild state the hen lays from six to ten eggs a year. 
She lays them in some secluded nook in the jungle, that she may 
rear her little brood. If it were not for this instinct of reproduc- 
tion the hen would never lay. We have taken this instinct of 
reproduction, stimulated it so that the domestic fowl now lays 
from ten to twentyfold as many eggs as her aboriginal ancestress ; 
but have largely forgotten, if we ever knew, that it is the presence 
of this instinct that makes egg production possible. 



47 

CONDITIONS OF REPRODUCTION. 
What are the conditions of reproduction ? They are five, and 
they are as follows : 

1. Maturity. The animal, bird or plant must be in the inter- 
mediate state between growth and decay. The desire for repro- 
duction is greater at the beginning of this intermediate state, and 
steadily declines towards its end. This is why a fowl will lay 
more eggs the first year after coming to maturity than in any 
subsequent year of her life. 

2. Vitality.. Reproduction draws upon the vital forces as 
does no other act. This is why the bird feels a desire to incubate 
after her litter is completed — she needs rest. The broody hen 
should be treated with great consideration, and not ruthlessly 
abused, as is too often the case. The immediate effect of disease 
or injury is to weaken the desire for reproduction. A sick hen is 
not a laying hen. 

3. Nutrition. The animal, bird or plant must be well fed. 
Darwin makes nutrition the principal factor in reproduction. He 
says : "With hardly an exception our domesticated animals, 
which have long been habituated to a regular and copious supply 
of food, without the labor of searching for it, are more fertile 
than the corresponding wild animals. The amount of food affects 
the fertility of even the same individual ; thus sheep, which on 
mountains never produce more than one lamb to a birth, when 
brought down to lowland pastures, frequently bear twins. As 
Mr. Dixon has remarked, "High feeding, care and moderate 
warmth induce a habit of profligacy which becomes in some 
measure hereditary." (Animals and Plants Under Domestica- 
tion, vol. ii, chap, xvi.) 

4. Sanitation. Sanitation profoundly aff'ects vitality, and 
without sanitation the other conditions cannot produce their full 
effect. The hen house should be kept perfectly clean, the birds 
free from parasites ; they should not be crowded, and should be 
supplied with everything necessary to comfort and health. 

5. Sex. In the very lowest forms of life reproduction is 
asexual — that is, the new life is produced not by the coming 
together of male and female, but by fission or cleavage from the 
parent organism. But all higher animals and plants are repre- 
sented by distinct male and female forms, and the more com- 
pletely each form is sexed the greater its power of reproducing its 
kind. 



48 

THE SEX ELEMENT IN REPRODUCTION. 

The importance of the sex element in reproduction has never 
been fully understood. Splendid work is being done at experi- 
ment stations and by independent investigators in the study of 
the domestic fowl. The trap nest has enabled us to select the 
hens that lay the most eggs, and to breed from them. Nutrition 
has been studied, until we can feed with almost mathematical cer- 
tainty; but the study of sex has been neglected. It may be that 
the study of sex requires a knowledge of physiology and biology 
that is lacking in the case of most poultrymen ; but it is here that 
the richest field lies, and when a man has mastered the subject of 
sex he is in a condition to obtain a large and uniform egg yield 
with the minimum amount of cost and labor. 

BREED FROM THE BEST SEXED BIRDS. 

The great secret of large and uniform egg production I believe 
to be this: Breed from tJie best sexed birds! Poultry writers are 
reviving the old question as to whether or not there is an egg 
type. I am inclined to think there is. But the egg type that I 
care most about is one based on sex. The male that is the most 
distinctly male and the female that is the most distinctly female 
are the birds for me. 

By keeping this principle in mind I have succeeded in building 
up a strain of birds that are splendid layers. I do not use the 
trap nest, and so am not able to give individual records. I did 
have a bird once that laid an egg that allowed me to keep tab on 
her as accurately as if I had used the trap nest. From some 
peculiarity of the ovaries the egg had a ring around it about one- 
third of the distance from the smaller to the larger end; it was 
ivory white in color and of medium size. It was such an egg as 
I could not very well mistake. In 14 months and 10 days more 
than 300 of these eggs appeared. The hen then became broody, 
and I foolishly allowed her to sit. After she had completed the 
process of inctibation and weaned her chicks, so much time had 
been lost that I did not attempt to keep tab upon her again. I 
have given up pushing my hens for big egg production, but take 
what comes along. When conditions are right I get from 150 to 
200 eggs a year apiece from my best layers and with that I am 
satisfied. 



49 

HOW I APPLY THE PRINCIPLE OF SEX SELECTION, 
And now I will tell the readers of this chapter how I apply the 
principle of sex selection. I keep a close watch over my chicks 
from the day they break the shell, and ' as soon 
as one shows its sex that chick is marked so that I can tell it 
afterwards. When the chicks are three months old the 
first separation is made ; males and females are sepa- 
rated, and the chicks that showed their sex first are taken from 
the rest. This gives me four flocks. From the chicks in which 
the sex element first manifested itself I expect to get my best 
layers. When it is time to put the birds in the winter quarters 
another separation is made — the birds that show they are nearest 
ready to lay are put in pens by themselves. (I do not care for 
precocious pullets, but when pullets have had time to mature the 
ones that are nearest ready to lay are in my judgment the best 
pullets.) The final selection for the breeding pens is made when 
birds are about i8 months old — the ones which moult the earliest 
and most rapidly being selected for breeders. Thus by a consistent 
application of the principle of sex selection I get my strain. 

With the males the same principle is applied. The birds that 
show their sex the earliest and the most strongly are reserved, 
and the others are killed and sent to the market. Any judge will 
tell you that "good wattles are a sign of a good bird." But 
besides having good wattles a breeding, cockerel should have other 
qualities: he should be vigorous, alert, courageous, well grown, 
with decided protuberances on his shanks where later the spurs 
are to be. In other words, he should be strongly sexed. 

I believe that anyone who will consistently and intelligently 
follow out the suggestions given in this chapter will see his egg 
yield steadily improve, and that in three breeding seasons, with 
comparatively little trouble, he will get the 200-egg hen. 

THE LAW OF SEX: MALES OR FEMALES AT WILL. 
One of the most interesting problems that confronts the biol- 
ogist is that of sex. What are the conditions that produce a male 
organism and what the conditions that produce a female? It is 
obvious that in a world where everything is by law sex is not by 
chance, but what the law is we do not fully know. Still many 
facts have been gathered, and we are nearing the goal. The poul- 
try business ofifers a peculiarly favorable field for investigation. 
When you reflect that perfect organisms may be produced in any 



50 

number in the short space of 21 days, that the parent fowls may 
be kept under such conditions as the investigator may wish and 
that these conditions may be varied at will, that the embryo may 
be followed through all the stages of its development, — you real- 
ize at once what a field the poultry business presents for a study 
of the problem of sex, and the business takes on a new dignity 
and interest. 

Some very important facts bearing on sex have been gathered. 
The point on which investigators are more fully agreed is that 
nutrition has a profound influence upon sex. Beginning with 
insects it has been found that if caterpillars are starved before 
entering the chrysalis state the resultant butterflies or moths are 
niales, while others of the same brood highly nourished are 
females. With bees, too, the relation between nutrition and sex 
seems "equally well established. Experiments with tadpoles, 
which were supplied with a diet steadily increasing in sumptuous- 
ness, showed a steady and corresponding increase in the number 
of females produced. The proportion of females to males, which 
was originally 57 to 43, rose steadily as the diet became more and 
more highly nutritious, until out of 100 tadpoles 92 were females 
and 8 males. Coming up in the scale of life it has been found 
that among mammals the same principle holds, although of course 
other influences come in more than among the lower orders. 

Another feature that is believed to have an influence upon sex 
is the time of impregnation. The fresher the ovum when fertil- 
ized the greater the likelihood that the ofifspring will be a female. 
If this conclusion is correct eggs laid at the beginning of a litter 
should hatch a larger proportion of pullets than eggs laid later. 

The relative age of the parents is believed to afifect the sex. 
Where the male parent is the older the offspring are preponder- 
atingly male; and where the ages are even, or where the mother 
is the superior in age, the preponderance is the other way. I find 
that this is a theory quite generally held. I sometimes receive 
letters from would-be purchasers asking for eggs from hens 
mated with cockerels. It is a theory very easy to test, and the 
reader should give it a trial in his yards. 

Temperature is also a feature to be reckoned with. I have 
noticed in my own yards that in the cold months the proportion 
of pullets hatched is smaller than it is later in the season. Take 
the plant lice whicli multiply so rapidly upon the rose-bushes, 
fruit-trees, and the like, and which are known to science as 



51 

aphides. "During- the warmth of summer, when food is abund- 
dant, these insects produce parthenogenetically nothing but 
females, while in the famines of later autumn they give birth to 
males. In striking confirmation of this fact it has been proved 
that in a conservatory where aphides enjoy perpetual summer, 
the parthenogenetic successsion of female continued to go on for 
four years, and stopped only when the temperature was lowered 
and food diminished." 

In my own experiments and observations I have found sev- 
eral things influencing sex that I have not found mentioned by 
the authorities. One of these is affinity. I have found that 
where there is perfect affinity and the birds are happy and con- 
tented, the conditions are right for the production of females ; but 
where the birds are not well mated and frequent quarrels ensue 
the offspring are likely to be largely males. Another thing is 
freedom from disturbance and fear. Where hens are kept stirred 
up by the presence of strangers or shifted frequently from place 
to place their eggs are quite sure to hatch an excess of males. 
The quieter you can keep your hens the more pullets you will get. 

The greater the number of females to a male the more pullets. 
I know a man who mated two roosters to ii8 hens, and out of 
135 chickens hatched 107 were females. 

Now let me sum up all that has been said in the language of 
another : "Such conditions as deficient or abnormal food, low tem- 
perature, deficient light, moisture and the like, are obviously such 
as would tend to induce a preponderance of waste over repair, — a 
katabolic habit of body, — and these conditions tend to result in 
the production of males. Similarly, the approved set of factors, 
such as abundant and rich nutrition, abundant light and moisture, 
favor constructive processes, that is, make for an anabolic habit, 
and these conditions result in the production of females. With 
some element of uncertainty we may also include the influence of 
the age and of physiological prime of either sex, and of the period 
of fertilization. But the general conclusion is tolerably secure, 
that in the determination of sex iniiuences inducing katdboHsnti 
(or waste) tend to result in the production of males, as those 
favoring anabolisni (or repair) similarly increase the probability 
of females." 

This is the law of sex, so far as it can be stated at present. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE TRAP NEST AND ITS USES. 



Within the past few years the outfit of the poultryman has 
been enlarged by the addition of the trap nest. As to the practi- 
cal value of these nests there is a wide difference of opinion : on 
the one hand they are enthusiastically advocated ; on the other 
they are scornfully condemned. The trap nest needs a judicial 
appraisal. It has been unfortunate in both its enemies and its 
friends. Many of those who have ridiculed it have never tried it, 
and those who have advocated it have too often been those who 
are interested in it in a financial way. 

The principle on which the invention rests is that of the influ- 
ence of heredity. It is a fact well known to all breeders of ani- 
mals that desirable traits may be transmitted, and by careful mat- 
ing a strain may be permanently established. It is a matter of 
common knowledge that in the poultry world some of the most 
popular breeds of to-day have been made within a comparatively 
recent time by the combination of individuals of different varie- 
ties. It would seem almost axiomatic, therefore, that if one 
wishes to establish a heavy-laying strain he must breed only from 
heavy layers. In the preceding chapter I have told how these 
layers may be picked out. But there is always the possibility 
that the poultryman may be mistaken. The trap nest box may 
be used in the breeding pen for a time at least to supplement the 
poultryman's personal observation. It is not necessary to use it 
all the year round, or to use it in all the pens ; but it may be used 
at times in certain pens to good advantage to ascertain if all the 
hens are laying, and to weed out hens that are not doing so well 
as their owners think they ought, and hens that lay small, mis- 
shapen or poorly-colored eggs. 

The fancier also may make good use of the trap nest in the 
breeding season, to enable him to select the eggs of individual 
layers. He may have in a pen a hen of unusual beauty or excel- 
lence, the offspring of which he desires to keep for his own use. 
The trap nest will enable him to pick out the eggs this hen lays, 
and then by markings on the feet of chicks hatched from these 
eggs it is easy to tell them from the rest. 



53 



THE GOWELL TRAP NEST. 
There are many trap nests on the market. The right to use 
these nests, with plans for their construction, costs from one to 
three dollars. Through the courtesy of Mr. G. M. Gowell, agri- 
culturist of the Maine Experiment Station, I am able to present 
my readers with the plan for a nest box free of charge. The nest 
box here described was made by Mr. Gowell after a careful study 




Single Nest Box. 



of the various nest boxes on the market, and is intended to com- 
bine their excellences and avoid their defects. This is the box 
that is illustrated here, and the description of it is in Mr. Gowell's 
own words : 

"The nest box is very simple, inexpensive, easy to attend, and 
certain in its action. It is a box-like structure, without end or 
cover; and is twenty-eight inches long, thirteen inches wide and 



54 



(qiaa^ 



^ 



thirteen inches deep — inside measurements. A division board 
with a circular opening seven and one-half inches in diameter is 
placed across the box twelve inches from the back end and fifteen 
inches from the front end. The back section is the nest proper. 
Instead of a close door at the entrance, a light frame of inch by 
inch and half stuff is covered with wire netting of one inch mesh. 
The door is ten and one-half inches wide and ten inches high and 
does not fill the entire entrance, a space of two and a half inches 
being left at the bottom and one and a half inches at the top, with 
a good margin at each side to avoid friction. If it filled the entire 
space it would be clumsy in its action. It is hinged at the top and 
opens up irtto the box. The hinges are placed on the front of the 
door rather than at the center or back, the better to secure com- 
plete closing action. 

"The trip consists of one piece of stiff wire about three-six- 
teenths of an inch in diameter and eighteen and one-half inches 

long, bent as shown in drawing. A 
piece of board six inches wide and just 
long enough to reach across the box 
inside is nailed flatwise in front of the 
partition and one inch below the top of 
the box, a space of one-fourth of an inch 
being left between the edge of the board 
and the partition. The purpose of this 
board is only to support the trip wire in 
place. The six-inch section of the trip 
wire is placed across the board and 
the long part of the wire slipped 
through the quarter inch slot, and 
passed down close to and in front of the 
center of the seven and a half inch cir- 
cular opening. Small wire staples are 
driven nearly down over the six-inch 
section of the trip wire into the board 
so as to hold it in place and yet let it roll sidewise easily. 

"When the door is set, the half inch section of the wire 
marked A comes under a hard wood peg or a tack with a large 
round head, which is driven into the lower edge of the door 
frame. The hen passes in through the circular opening and in 
doing so presses the wire to one side, and the trip slips from its 
connection with the door. The door promptly swings down and 



jr 



f 



ify^ 



/ 




I 



55 



fastens itself in place by its lower edge striking the light end of 
a wooden latch or lever, pressing it down and slipping over it; 
the lever immediately coming back into place and locking the door. 
The latch is five inches long, one inch wide and a half inch thick, 
and is fastened loosely one inch from its center to the side of the 
box, so that the outer end is just inside the door when it is closed. 
The latch acts quickly enough to catch the door before it 
rebounds. It was feared that the noise arising from the closing 
of the door might startle the hens, so instead of wooden stops 
pieces of old rubber belting were nailed at the outside entrances 
for the door to strike against. 

"The double box with nest in the rear end is necessary, as 
when a bird has laid and desires to leave the nest, she steps to the 
front and remains there until released. With one section only, 
she would be likely to crush the egg by standing upon it." 




^^;y7rp^^:r^'2j:;h~]j^:^:^:^j::^^\ 




Nest Boxes in Position. 



CHAPTER IX. 



BREEDING FOR TWO HUNDRED EGGS A YEAR. 



Most of our domestic animals and birds are descendants of 
some wild prototype. In the zoological gardens of Hamburg and 
New York are living specimens of the primitive wild horse of 
Central Asia — funny, big-headed little brutes that are representa- 
tives of some type of horse that must be hundreds of thousands 
of years old. Dogs are descendants of wolves and jackals and 
perhaps of one or two species of wild dogs that have become 
extinct. Pigeons trace their ancestry back to the rock pigeon, 
which has a vast range from northern and eastern Europe to the 
shores of the Mediterranean, to Madeira and the Canary Islands, 
to Abyssinia, India and Japan. 

For the prototype of our domestic fowl we must go to Asia, 
and especially to nortliern India where the Himalayas lift their 
snowy crests far up into the sky. Here we shall find a bird run- 
ning wild through the dense forests and jungles, which is believed 
to be identical with the parent type from which all domestic fowls 
have come. The bird closely resembles the black -breasted Indian 
Game, with which we are all familiar, albeit somewhat smaller in 
size and carrying the tail more horizontally. From this bird have 
come all the varieties of our domestic fowls — the stately Spanish, 
the crested Polish, the lordly Brahma, the elegant Leghorn, the 
practical Plymouth Rock, the snowy Wyandotte and the diminu- 
tive Bantam. Natural and artificial selection, continued for 
many years, has created all these differences. 

Even more remarkable than the differences in plumage and 
form that have been brought about by breeding is the difference 
in egg production. Gallits Bankiva, as this wild jungle fowl is 
called, lays from six to ten eggs a year, while some of our domes- 
tic fowls have been known to lay over 300. This vast increase in 
egg production has been brought about by improved nutrition and 
by breeding from prolific layers. In other chapters I have empha- 
sized sufficiently the importance of care and feeding in egg pro- 
duction; in this I wish to call attention to the subject of breeding. 



57 

THE THREE LAWS OR PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING 
REPRODUCTION. 
Breeders now recognize three laws or principles under- 
lying the whole subject of reproduction, i. Inheritance. By 
inheritance is meant the tendency of parents to repeat themselves 
in their offspring, and of offspring to resemble their parents. It 
is because of this law of inheritance that anything like scientific 
breeding is possible. If parents did not have a proclivity to 
repeat themselves in their oft'spring and if offspring did not have 
a proclivity to resemble their parents, the breeder might well 
abandon his task as hopeless. 2. Variation. By variation is 
meant the tendency of offspring to differ from the parents. The 
infant is never an exact copy of the father or mother ; it possesses 
an independent individuality of its own. Thus the product of a 
and b is never a or b, or even ab or ba; it is ab plus x: in other 
words there enters in an unknown element to influence the result. 
It is this law of variation that makes it possible to improve the 
species : the parents may be so mated that the offspring will be 
better and stronger than either one of them. 3. Reversion. 
There is a propensity to go backwards as well as forwards — 'to 
return to some primitive type. Where mating is indiscriminate 
the tendency to reversion is very strong. 

BREED FROM YOUR BEST BIRDS. 

We have now reached the point where it is possible to formu- 
late some rules for breeding. The first is this : Breed from your 
best birds. By best birds I mean birds that will best enable you 
to reach your ideal. If your ideal is beauty breed from birds that 
will give you beauty ; if your ideal is utility breed from birds that 
will give you utility. We now see why it is so difficult to have 
a show bird and an egg bird in the same specimen. The breeder 
must sacrifice somewhere — either on the score card or the egg 
record. It is possible to have a good looker and a good layer in 
the same bird; but I do not believe that it is possible to have a 
bird that will win in Boston, New York or Chicago, and at the 
same time lay 200 eggs a year. The reader must make his choice. 
I have made mine. Utility first, beauty afterwards. I like to see 
a beautiful bird as well as any one, but I can't afford to breed for 
plumage and points. My White Wyandottes sometimes show 
some brass; they stand higher than I like; but they will lay— 



58 

summer and winter, hot or cold, wet or dry — lay so that I some- 
times fear they will lay themselves to death. They are a money- 
making proposition for me and for my customers, even if they 
cannot win at the big shows. 

BREED FROM MATURE BIRDS. 

The only bird fit to breed from is one that is in good health 
and thoroughly mature. Probably the best mating is a vigorous, 
well-grown cockerel with year-old hens ; next to that a cock with 
mature pullets. A pullet should have laid out at least one litter 
before she is put into a breeding pen. Even then it is better not 
to use her, if you can help it. There is no surer way of running 
out a flock than to breed from immature birds. 

THE MALE. 
You often hear it said that "the rooster is half the pen." It is 
meant by this that one-half the blood of the otTspring will come 
from the male side. Such being the case it is highly important 
that the cock or cockerel should be a good bird. A few para- 
graphs back I spoke of the fact that the hen in her wild state laid 
from six to ten eggs a year. The average farmer's hen lays from 
75 to lOO eggs in the same time. What has made the increase? 
It has come, as I have said, from improved nutrition and from 
selection. But the selection has all been on the male side! It is 
the practice on the farm, and I doubt not has been for generations, 
to keep the best male to breed from, but to breed indiscriminately 
from the females. The fact that under such haphazard methods 
of keeping fowls as have prevailed in the past, egg production has 
increased tenfold, is a remarkable tribute to the value of the male 
as an agent in building up the egg yield. 

CONCERNING CROSSES. 

You will find a strong tendency on the part of the average 
poultry keeper to mix up his birds. If he gets a flock of fowls 
that begin to look alike, ten to one he will buy a rooster of a 
neighbor for a dollar of some entirely different breed, and the 
result will be that the next fall he will have a whole poultry show 
on his hands. There is a popular belief that crosses lay better 
than thoroughbreds, and the method of procedure is to mix up the 
birds as much as possible. 



59 

This whole subject of crossing needs to be better understood. 
Some good must come from crossing, or it would not be so uni- 
versally practiced. Where does it come from? It comes from 
the invigoration that always follows the introduction of new 
blood. The cross-breed pullet lays better than its mother because 
it is larger and stronger — it can eat and assimilate more and stand 
the strain of egg production better. The average farmer's flock 
is constantly running out. He does not breed from his best. The 
introduction of new blood counteracts this tendency. Conse- 
quently the farmer is converted to a belief in the superiority of 
the cross. 

But when you go beyond the first cross — when you criss-cross, 
as they say — you strike another tendency — the tendency to 
reversion. The mixing up of bloods results in bringing out 
ancestral characters. The criss-cross is not far removed from 
the red jungle fowl, and there inevitably comes a drop in egg 
production. 

All the valuable results that come from crossing can be 
secured bv the occasional infusion of new blood from a male of 
the same breed as your own, and the breed may be kept pure. Tt 
is not necessary to introduce new blood oftener than once in two 
years. Suppose you send away for a cockerel this fall. The first 
mating will be with birds with which he is entirely unrelated. 
Next fall mate him to the best pullets of his own get, and take the 
best cockerel to mate with the hens in the other breeding pen. If 
you find a strain of birds that you like follow along with the 
breeder, getting a male from his yards every two years. 

Breeders for fancy points breed in and in, and have a chart of 
matings that is as intricate as a bicycle road map. It is impossi- 
ble to produce show birds that will win in the hottest competition 
without in and in breeding. But the reader of this book has no 
necessity to resort to any such procedure — that is, if he is after 
eggs first and not feathers and frills. 

FERTILE EGGS AND HOW TO GET THEM. 
To get fertile eggs three things are necessary— maturity, vital- 
ity, comfort. The conditions in the breeding pen must be such as 
to promote maximum vitality. Where the male is immature, 
where the house is so cold that all the food eaten goes to main- 
tain the caloric, where the fowls are alive with vermin or rotten with 



60 

disease, the fertility will be low. Inbreeding- also tends to infer- 
tility. So does lack of exercise and overfat condition of fowls in 
the breeding pen. 

Doubtless diet has an important effect upon fertility. Unless 
every element needed for the embryo is present, the egg- will be 
infertile or the chick will die in the shell. There are some kinds 
of food that stimulate the genital organs and promote sexual 
activity. Raw onions chopped fine and fed in the mash twice a 
week are excellent during the breeding season. Clover is also a 
valuable food for fertility. 

Where fertile eggs are wanted the hen must not be pushed too 
hard for egg production. My own method is to push my pullets 
the first year. I reserve the best layers to breed from, and do not 
push them the second year ; but let them take things easy. They 
have made their record and deserve a rest. When the breeding 
season comes they are in prime condition, and lay large, highly 
colored eggs which hatch hardy chicks. 

It pays to alternate males where high fertility is desired, allow- 
ing three males for two pens, keeping two in active service and 
the third shut up to rest. Cocks have their favorites, and where 
one male runs with a flock some hens are neglected ; but where 
males are alternated all are likely to be served. 

Many eggs fail to hatch because they are not properly cared 
for. It takes but little to kill the germ. One reason farmers get 
such poor results in winter is that they are not careful to gather 
their eggs several times a day. The opinion is common among 
them that an egg must be frozen hard enough to crack the shell 
before it is unfit to put under a hen. Eggs should be gathered 
when warm and kept in a temperature of from 40 to 60 degrees. 
In shipping eggs to customers they should be moved in the 
middle of the day and protected from extremes of temperature as 
much as possible. 

WHY EGGS ARE NOT FERTILE IN WINTER. 

Almost every winter some person of my acquaintance buys an 
inculiator and starts in to raise broilers for the city market. The 
result is inevitably disappointment.. The percentage of fertility 
is so low and the mortality among the chicks so great, that the 
books show a loss instead of a profit at the end of the season. 
The reason why the fertility is so low in winter is purely physio- 
logical. 'The testicles of birds vary greatly in size according to 



61 

the season of the year in which they are observed. In winter 
they are very small with a comparatively insignificant blood sup- 
ply ; but in spring, as the breeding season comes on, they enlarge 
to five or ten times the weight during winter, the vessels are dis- 
tended with blood and the height of functional activity is 
reached." To get fertile eggs in winter, therefore, the house must 
be warm, or eggs must be imported from the South. 



CHAPTER X. 



INCUBATION— ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL. 



As the poultry business is now conducted it is the practice for 
each poultryman to get out enough chicks in the spring to supply 
him with layers in the fall. There is no reason, however, why the 
great law of specialization should not obtain in the poultry busi- 
ness as in nearly every other, and why in the future we should not 
have entire plants devoted to the rearing of young stock and 
other plants devoted wholly to the production of eggs. At pres- 
ent, however, it is necessary for the poultryman to know how to 
raise his own chicks, if he wishes to succeed. 

It is a good rule on a poultry farm to have at least two-thirds 
of the laying stock pullets. Suppose then a man intends to keep 
300 head of laying stock always on hand, — it will be necessary for 
him to get out at least 600 chicks. Of these one-half (or 300) 
are likely to be males ; so that at the start he will have but 30C 
females. The poultryman must count on some deaths by disease 
and accident. There will be some weak ones that are better off 
put out of the way. Then he should watch his flock carefully and 
cull closely, according to the principles laid down in Chapter 
VII. The man who gets out 600 chicks in the spring will be 
lucky if he has 200 standard bred pullets in the fall. 

USE LEG BANDS. 

Pullets wdien they are put in the laying pens should be marked 
with leg bands. It is not necessary to use bands with numbers ; 
plain bands are just as good. It is my personal practice to mark 
birds hatched in the even years (years that can be divided by two) 



62 

with a band on the right leg; and birds that are hatched in the 
odd years (j^ears that cannot be divided by two) with a band on 
the left leg. In this way I can always tell at a glance just how 
old a liird is, and never confuse a pullet and a year-old hen. 

INCUBATOR OR HEX, WHICH? 

Sooner or later the poultryman must face the question with 
which this paragraph is headed, and it is my purpose now to help 
him to an answer. In this matter, as in most others, there is 
something to be said on both sides. In favor of the natural 
method there is first of all economy. It costs at least S25 to install 
an outfit for artificial incubation, and this is an expense that many 
can ill afiford. Chickens brooded by hens have more stamina and 
are subject to fewer diseases than chickens brooded in any other 
way. There is no mother for a brood of young chickens that can 
equal an old hen. Some of the most progressive poultrymen in 
the country use hens exclusively, setting hundreds of them at a 
time. 

The disadvantage of the natural method is that it is never com- 
pletely under one's control. Whatever mental qualities a hen 
may or may not possess, she has a full-grown, large-sized will; 
and no method has yet been discovered to make a hen sit when she 
does not want to. To realize the largest profits in poultry, 
chickens must be hatched early and kept growing from the day 
they leave the shell. It is not always possible to have a supply of 
sitting hens on hand. The sitting hen is liable to leave her nest 
before her task is done, and no amount of persuasion will induce 
her to return. Sometimes she crushes eggs or young chicks under 
her clumsy feet. At the best she can bring out but a few 
chickens at a time. After a while the up-to-date poultryman is 
almost certain to come to the conclusion that he must have an 
incubator. 

The advantage of the artificial method is that it is so com- 
pletely under one's control. The incubator may be started at any 
time. The best machines are so adjusted that the element of 
chance is practically eliminated, and every fertile egg may be 
incubated. The trouble comes in rearing the chickens. Brooder 
chickens require much more attention and are more subject to dis- 
ease than chickens brooded under hens. The per cent, of loss 
is greater. Especially among beginners there is sometimes a 
"slaughter of the innocents" that is frightful. 



63 



To sum up: If one wants early chickens and wants them in 
quantities and has the time to give to them, he should by all means 
get an incubator. Otherwise he would best stick to the hen. 

GET A GOOD INCUBATOR OR NONE. 
In purchasing an incubator remember that the best is the 
cheapest. A poor machine is dear at any price. Beware of the 
home-made incubator. Sometimes they work satisfactorily, but 
oftener they do not. I know a young man of more than ordinary 
ingenuity who constructed an incubator from plans that he found 
in a paper. By visiting the machine at intervals during the day 
and by getting up two or three times a night to trim the lamp or 
to pull out plugs so tliat the surplus heat might escape, he was 
able to keep the temperature somewhere near where it ought to be. 
But one warm Sunday, while he was at church, the tempera- 
ture took a leap upward, and when he returned at noon the ther- 
mometer registered 120 degrees. As a consequence 180 chickens 
were prematurely roasted, and nearly three weeks of valuable time 
lost. The young man has lost confidence in incubators, and now 
hatches his chickens with hens. An incubator should be bought 
at least a month before it is to be started on eggs, in order that 
the operator may become thoroughly familiar with the machine 
and know how to run it right. 

A NATURAL HEN INCUBATOR. 

The work of caring for sitting hens may be greatly reduced 
by the construction of what I may call a natural hen incubator, 
the design for which is shown here. 




A Natural Hen Incubator. 



This natural hen incubator may be of any length ; but should 
be two feet deep, two feet high, and divided into compartments 
18 inches wide. Some prefer a door to each compartment, but I 



64 

find it more convenient to have the doors somewhat longer, so 
that one may enclose a number of divisions. The top should be 
hinged at the back, so that it can be lifted up if desired, as shown 
in the cut ; but ordinarily it is shut down. The door in front is 
covered with chicken ware. Each compartment should be in two 
divisions, so if a hen wnshes to leave her nest temporarily she 
can do so. 

If possible, enough hens should be set at one time to utilize 
all the compartments behind a door. The door should be kept 
latched except in the morning when it is opened, the hens taken 
off. fed and watered and left to dust. In from lo to 20 minutes, 
according to the weather, the hens should be driven back. As 
the hens are all set at the same time it makes no difference which 
compartment a hen enters. She will find eggs ready for her. 

THE SITTING HEN. 

Where incubation is carried on by the natural method it is 
important to have a supply of sitting hens on hand in March, 
April and May, in order that the chicks may be hatched early. 
While it is true that no method has yet been discovered to make 
a hen sit at will, it is also true that the instinct may be encour- 
aged. As soon as we understand the philosophy of incubation 
we may go to work to bring about the desired result. In a state 
of Nature when does the hen sit? In summer. Why in sum- 
mer? Because the reproductive instinct has been stimulated by 
the hot weather. Because she has laid her litter out. Because 
she has become fat and sluggish. It is evident that if we can 
reproduce these conditions we can hasten incubation. 

Old hens make the best sitters, because they are not so active 
as young ones. The treatment of hens that are kept for sitters 
should be radically different from the treatment of hens that are 
kept for layers. Thev should be confined more closely and fed 
differently. Corn should form an important part of their food. 
As soon as a hen shows symptoms of broodiness she should be 
encouraged. She should be taken at night and placed in a nest 
prepared for her in a dark, quiet place. This nest should con- 
tain china eggs, and should be covered with a burlap bag to make 
it dark. The next morning the bag should be removed and the 
hen let out for food and water. If she goes back it is safe to 
entrust her with real eggs. 



65 

The comfort of a sitting- hen should be scrupulously looked 
after. Before she is placed on the nest she should be thoroughly 
dusted with some good insect powder and agam just before she 
brings off her brood. She should be taken off the nest, fed and 
watered and given a chance to dust herself every day. Sitting 
hens should be fed on whole corn, as that is slowly digested and 
is a heat-forming food. 

TESTING THE EGGS. 

While it is essential that the sitters be kept as quiet as possible, 
yet it is important that the eggs be tested once or twice during 
the period of incubation. Egg testers can be purchased at a low 
price from the manufacturers of incubators or at poultry supply 
stores. Eggs must be tested in a dark room or at night. The 
first test should be made at the expiration of seven days. If the 
egg, when looked at in the tester, is clear, it is infertile and should 
be removed from the nest. If the egg when looked at is cloudy 
or dark, with a well defined air space at the big end, incubation 
has begun. The water test, described in the next section, should 
be made on the 19th day, and eggs with dead germs in them taken 
out. 

THE WATER TEST. 

Wliere a sitting hen does not have a chance to get out doors, 
her owner should supply moisture to make good the loss to the 
eggs by evaporation. Eggs should be sprinkled on the 7th and 
on the 14th day. Remove the hen from the nest and with a whisk 
broom sprinkle the eggs thoroughly with water of a temperature 
of 95 degrees. On the 19th day the eggs should be given a bath. 
Fill a pail with water of the temperature of 95 degrees, and after 
it has become still drop the eggs in it one by one, letting them 
remain from one to three minutes. If there is a lively chick in 
the egg in a minute or Uwo it will begin to bob up and down as 
a float does on the water when a fish is nibbling at the bait below. 
Take the egg out and put it back in the nest, wiping it with a 
towel if it is winter but letting the surplus water remain if it is 
summer. In case an egg does not show any movement after 
being in the water three minutes — if it does not "jump" — you 
might as well throw it away, as it will not incubate. Chicks from 
eggs treated in this way come out strong and clean and make a 
surprising growth. 



CHAPTER XI. 



CHICKS AND THEIR CARE. 

Poultry keeping is not with me a means of livelihood, but is 
more in the natiu'e of a recreation. It is a matter of personal 
pride with me, however, to make poultry keeping pay. I do not 
at present get out my own chicks, but supply eggs to those who 
have a knack for the business and let them hatch chicks for me 
and keep them until they are weaned. Then I select what I want 
in accordance with the principles laid down in Chapter VII. 
People often wonder how I get such a growth on my chicks after 
I take them into my hands. The reason is very simple. I select 
only as many chicks as I have room for and I keep chicks of the 
same age together. The average poultry keeper gets out alto- 
gether too many chicks. There is a temptation when eggs are 
hatching well to set every hen that is broody or to fill up the incu- 
bator just once more. There is plenty of room for the chicks at 
first, but as they grow older they are crowded and do not do so 
well as they ought. Then when chicks of different ages are left 
together, there is too much "rough house" for the younger ones 
and they become stunted. If you want fine birds get out only as 
many chicks as you have room for, divide them into small flocks, 
and keep chicks of the same age by themselves. 

WHY NOT INSTALL A BROODER? 

Even where an incubator is not employed a brooder may be 
installed to good advantage. I know a man who gets out in the 
neighborhood of i,ooo chicks every spring — hatching them all 
under hens and brooding them in brooders. I am as great an 
admirer of the American hen as any other man, but I confess that 
her conduct as a mother is often not such as to impress me with 
an exalted opinion of her mentality. 

The best brooder, in my opinion, is one built for 
lOO chicks, and costing about $12, just as the best incubator is 
one built for 200 eggs or thereabouts. The out-door brooder is 
not generally satisfactory, as it is difficult to keep chicks w^arm 
enough in it when the temperature ranges low. The brooder 



67 

should be placed in a brooder house, and there is no better 
brooder house in my opinion than the colony community house 
described in Chapter II. 

Be sure to set the brooder where the sun will not shine on it, 
in installing it in a house ; and do not put more than 60 chicks in 
a lOO-chick brooder. 

REMOVING CHICKS TO BROODER. 

We will now assume that the period of incubation is com- 
pleted, and that the chicks are ready to be removed from the nest. 
It is 24 hours at least since the last chick broke the shell, and may 
be 48 hours since the first hardy pioneer made his entrance into 
our sinful world. I assume that two or three times while the 
chicks were hatching you gently lifted up the mother hen and 
removed the fragments of broken egg shell from the nest. 

And now comes the most important and in some ways the 
most disagreeable part of the whole business — the transfer of 
the chicks from the nest to the brooder, which may be some dis- 
tance away. You cannot choose your day — it may be cold or it 
may be warm — but you can choose the warmest part of it for 
your purpose. Better take your wife with you, if you are fortu- 
nate enough to have one. Take a shallow basket, such as is used 
for marketing, and line the bottom with a piece of old woolen 
blanket, which has previously been warmed. Over this lay 
another piece of warmed blanket, to put over the chickens when 
they are pkced in the basket. 

As each chicken is taken out from under the hen anoint its 
head lightly with lard or vaseline, to kill head lice, and place it 
quickly in the basket. When the basket is full take the chicks to 
the brooder house and place them in the hover, which has been 
brought to a temperature of 100 degrees. 

If vou are a man of tender sensibilities you will feel as if you 
were a kidnapper or a manstealer when you take the chicks away 
from their mother. You will feel, as one man expressed it to me, 
^'too mean to look a hen in the face." But, fortunately, the hen 
does not suffer long — she soon forgets. Place her in a bright, 
sunny pen where there are other hens and a male, supply her with 
more varied food than she has been accustomed to during the 
period of incubation, and in a few days she will be scratching and 
singing as merrily as of yore. 



68 

TWO SECRETS OF SUCCESS— HEAT AND FEEDING. 
The two great secrets of success in raising brooder chicks are 
proper heat and proper feeding. The heat should come from 
overhead, as this is the most natural method, and should be hot 
air. Bear in mind that the young chick needs a great deal of 
heat. He has come from a warm place — the temperature of his 
mother's body being 103 degrees. For the first two or three davs 
the temperature in the brooder should be 95 degrees ; then it may 
be gradually lowered, as the chicks grow, until it drops to 80 
degrees if the weather is warm and pleasant. "The best rule to 
follow is to observe the chicks. ... If they arrange them- 
selves at the edge of the brooder, and separate, by spreading out, 
the heat will be just what they desire. If too cool they will come 
closely together and crowd. Many operators have left their 
chicks apparently contented at night, only to find in the morning 
some of them dead under the brooder, because the heat lowered 
and the chicks trampled among themselves in the effort to secure 
more warmth, and this, too, when (to the operator) there seemed 
to be sufficient." 

CARE OF THE BROODER. 

The brooder is to be the home of the chicks until they are at 
least six wrecks old. It is a good idea to keep the brooder in the 
brooder house until August, and then on the cold, wet days which 
we sometimes have in summer give the chicks a little heat. The 
floor of the brooder should be kept sprinkled with sand, and 
should be cleaned every morning. The floor of the brooder house 
should also be kept covered with clean sand, and the windows 
should be opened every warm and sunny day. There is no hurry 
to get the chicks out on the ground ; indeed it is better for them 
to spend the first four weeks of their lives indoors. 

The brooder should be enclosed with a low fence of boards 
for the first few days, so that the chicks cannot get far away. 
They should be given their first feeds in the brooder and watered 
there, but in a little while the feed tray and fountain may be 
placed outside the brooder, but close to it. Grit of some kind 
should be supplied. 

HOW TO FEED BROODER CHICKS. 
My method of feeding brooder chicks is as follow^s : The first 
week or ten days I feed rolled oats and nothing else, — just the 



69 

same kind of rolled oats that I use on my own table. I feed them 
dry. I feed them in little troughs made for the purpose, and keep 
oats before the chicks all the time. Every day or two I take the 
troughs and empty the oats remaining in them into the hens' dish, 
and brush out the troughs with a whisk broom. It may seem 
extravagant to feed rolled oats at five cents a pound ; but I believe 
the foundation of a chick's constitution and future growth is laid 
in the first few weeks of its life, and it is cheaper in the end to. 
feed as I do and have the chicks live and thrive than to feed some- 
thing else and have them stunted and die. 

At the end of a week or ten days I begin to introduce a little 
variety. I take wheat and cracked corn — one part wdieat to two 
parts corn — and feed a small quantity of this in place of the rolled 
oats. I increase the quantity of wheat and corn from day to day 
and decrease the quantity of rolled oats, so that when the 
chicks are a month old I have w'eaned them from the rolled oats 
and am feeding them on whole wheat and cracked corn. When 
the chicks are ten days old I begin to give them green food, — a 
little at first, but increasing in amount from day to day. I feed 
onion tops, cabbage chopped fine, clover tips, or if I can get noth- 
ing better a potato baked and cut in two. I give meat in small 
quantities two or three times a week. Into a kettle of boiling 
water I put a piece of cheap meat or a soup bone with considera- 
ble meat adhering, and keep it there until well cooked. Then I 
pour off the liquid and take the meat and chop it into fine bits, 
or grind up the bone in my bone cutter, and throw a little to the 
chicks. They eat it greedily. I put a little salt in the water so 
that it will get into the fibres of the meat, because I think chicks 
need a certain amount of salt. 

I feed in this way until the chicks are "feathered out," when 
I. begin to feed them much as I do my hens, — a warm mash, and 
two or three feeds of grain a day. Until my chicks are "feath- 
ered out" I keep food before them all the time, letting them help 
themselves when they will. I ought to add that I am careful to 
keep cool fresh water before them from the very first, and also 
charcoal and grit. 

BROODER CHICKS— WHAT ANOTHER MAN THINKS. 

Writes C. A. Stone in the Poultry Standard: "I generally 
leave the chicks in the incubator about 24 hours after they are 
practically through hatching, and meanwhile heat a brooder to 95 



70 

degrees for about every 50 or 60 chicks. At first I strew the 
front of the brooder with fine grit, and then give them bread 
crumbs or wheat screenings or Cyphers Chick Food for their first 
feed — just what they will eat eat up clean — and give them all the 
water they want. I generally feed about five times a day the first 
two or three days, and gradually drop off to three feeds at three 
weeks. However, after the first two or three days I scatter their 
feed in a little litter, and make them hustle for it. Nothing under 
the sun will kill young chicks quicker than stuffing them and let- 
ting them stand around. I also give them green food of some 
sort and every two or three days a mash containing 8 per cent, or 
10 per cent, of meat meal. But above all things keep them hust- 
ling. 

"After the first two days I drop the temperature to 90 degrees. 
I aim to get the heat down to 80 degrees in the first week and a 
half and to 70 degrees in eight or ten days more. As near as T can 
I mean to drop the temperature about one degree a day until 70 
is reached. 

"For myself I use outdoor brooders mostly, and while we can- 
not maintain a uniform heat, by close watching we can keep a com- 
paratively even temperature, as my experience is that after a chick 
has been chilled or over heated it is poor property. I believe in 
getting them on the ground as soon as possible after the chicks 
learn to run in and out of the warm part of the brooder, and very 
frequently am obliged to shovel snow out of the brooder runs. 
But a chick will stand a lot of cold if he keeps on the move. Of 
course they must be watched closely in cold weather and if they 
show signs of huddling shut in until thoroughly warmed. 

"Some of my best flocks have been raised on wheat screenings 
alone, but I have had good success with some of the prepared 
chick foods. We must be governed by the season of year in 
moving to the cool brooder, as early chicks must be supplied with 
heat a long time ; but along the latter part of April I get them 
hardened to go without heat in about three weeks. At this age 
they are practically past the danger point, and if kept free from 
lice and given proper care will live and thrive." 

WHEN CHICKS ARE RAISED IN THE GOOD OLD WAY. 

There are many who prefer the "good old way" of brooding 
by hens, and to them I recommend the following from the pen 
of mv good friend, Mr. A. F. Hunter: "For the first 24 hours 



71 

after hatching chicks do not need food, as the portion of yolk that 
has just been taken into the abdomen has not been fully digested; 
and then too the chick should get accustomed to the fact that he 
has 'just been horned' before his little crop is started on its sel- 
dom empty journey through life. When the hatch comes off let 
the little fellovvs have a drink of pure fresh water (not too cold) ; 
this invigorates them and helps clear the digestive organs of the 
waste from digested yolk. 

"The first food should be bread crumbs and hard boiled egg, 
or johnnycake. To each pint of food add a sprinkling of chicken 
grit. The food for the first few weeks should be johnnycake, 
rolled oatS;, coarse oatmeal, and bread or cracker crumbs. A 
little well cooked meat finely minced three times a week, and a 
liberal supply of fresh green food, grit, charcoal, and pure water, 
are essential to health. When the chicks get to be six weeks old 
they should have a cooked mash for supper six nights in the 
week. For other food they should have hulled oats, wheat and a 
little cracked corn — fresh green food always. 

"From the first have a litter of chaff or cut clover and sand for 
the chicks to scratch in ; exercise is essential to good digestion. 
Give them sunny quarters, and provide a shelter in case the sun is 
too hot, and for protection in stormy weather. When warm 
weather comes be sure that they can have plenty of freedom and 
exercise on the green bosom of 'Old Mother Earth.' Keep them 
busy, happy and hungry. Be careful not to overfeed. If you 
must coop them up, make the coops large enough to give them 
plenty of room to exercise and grow. Change the location of 
such coops often, to give them fresh ground to run on." 

WHEN TO HATCH THE CHICKS. 
Chicks of the Asiatic breeds should be hatched in March, 
chicks of the American breeds in April, and chicks of the Medi- 
terranean breeds in May, for winter egg production. Poultry- 
men who want eggs all the year round will do well to keep get- 
ting out chicks from March to June and then start in again in 
September. Josh Billings quaintly says that "the best time tew 
set a hen iz when she wants tew set ;" and the man who has the 
facilities for taking care of them will find that chicks hatched at 
almost any season of the year will not come in amiss. I have 
known White WVandotte pullets of my strain, hatched in August, 
to begin laying in January, when in the same pen were pullets of 
other breeds hatched months before that had not begun to lay. 



CHAPTER XII. 



SOME OF THE MORE COMMON POULTRY DISEASES. 

There are comparatively few diseases that need give the poul- 
try keeper much alarm. I have heard it said that our domestic 
fowls are subject to as many diseases as human beings. But if 
this is so (which I greatly doubt) many of these diseases are so 
rare tliat they need not be taken into consideration. In this 
chapter I shall mention only the more common ailments — and 
give some rules for their treatment. 

HOW TO DISCOVER THE BEGIXXIXGS OF SICKNESS. 

There are four ways by which the poultryman may discover 
the beginnings of sickness, i. General appearance. A fowl in 
health is alert and active, plumage smooth, comb red, eye bright 
and clear, appetite good. A sick fowl is generally dumpish, 
plumage rough, comb pale or purple, appetite poor. 2. Respira- 
tion. Certain kinds of disease affect the respiratory organs and 
manifest themselves in the breathing. The best time to detect 
diseases of this sort is after the birds have gone to roost. If the 
iMrds on the roost sneeze from time to time, if the breathing is 
labored, if there is a rattling, bubljling or snoring sound, some- 
thing is wrong and needs attention. 3. Excrement. The 
excrement is a pretty good index of the health of a hen. Where 
the bird is in perfect health the excrement is dark green in color, 
tipped with white, somewhat moist. Where the excrement is soft 
and watery the digestion is disturbed. Where it is light green in 
color there is danger of serious trouble. If upon examination the 
excrement shows that considerable food is passing through undi- 
gested, the bird needs to be supplied with grit. 4. Odor. Some 
kinds of disease — especially roup — are accompanied by an offen- 
sive odor, and can at once be detected by the smell. 

SEGREGATE SICK BIRDS. 

I would advise all poultrymen to fit up a small building for a 
hospital, to which all sick fowls may at once be removed. In the 
case of a contagious disease this is especially important, for the 



73 

sick bird if allowed to remain with the rest may oommunicate the 
disease to the whole flock. Even where the disease is not serious, 
the patient is much better off if by herself. The hospital should 
be kept scrupulously clean, and should be thoroughly disinfected 
after a bird has been confined in it affected with any serious 
trouble. 

DISEASES OF CHICKS. 

Lice. — In the chapter on "Chicks and Their Care," I have 
warned the breeder to be on the lookout for lice. I repeat the 
w^arning- here. More chicks are sacrificed in this way than in 
any other. Even if the chick is not literally eaten alive its vital- 
ity is often so much reduced that it readily falls a prey to disease. 
It is never safe to give up the warfare against lice. 

Cramps and Rheumatism. — Many persons who get out early 
chicks have no proper facilities for handling them. Perhaps 
there is snow on the ground and the chicks cannot get out oi 
doors, so they are left on a board floor or in a crowded brooder, 
and in a few days their legs begin to draw up, the joints become 
red and swollen, and the little things die. When cramps and 
rheumatism get among the chicks transfer at once to dry and 
roomy quarters where their feet can get on the earth, give 
green food in variety, and rub their legs with witch hazel. 
Sprinkle chaff about so that the chicks will have to scratch for 
their food. Reduce the number of chicks in the brooder, if 
crowded. Give as much baking soda as you can get on the tip of 
the handle of a teaspoon, in a quart of water. 

Leg Weakness. — Where young fowls are forced forward for 
broilers or soft roasters they are apt to develop leg weakness, the 
nature of which is sufficiently explained by the name. The bird 
walks unsteadily, lurching from side to side, and sometimes sits 
when eating its food. "In all cases give cooling food, such as 
bran, barley, rice, green food, skim milk or buttermilk and vege- 
tables. Avoid condiments, meat and stimulating rations of all 
kinds." 

Gapes. — "Gapes are caused by small worms which attach 
themselves to the membranes of the windpipe of the chick. A 
piece of camphor about the size of a grain of wheat, daily, and lo 
drops of camphor or turpentine to each pint of drinking water, is 
a favorite and effective remedy." The tip of a feather dipped in 
turpentine and run down the chick's throat will dislodge the par- 
asite. 



74 

DIARRHOEA OR ENTERITIS. 

Feathering- out is a very trying period in the Hfe of a chick, 
corresponding to teethmg in the life of a child. There is a double 
tax upon the chick's system : the ordinary demands of growth 
must be met, and the little body must be covered with feathers. 
It is a time when even the most careful poultryman must expect 
some fatalities, and the careless or lazy poultryman must not be 
surprised to see his flock melt away like snow before the sun in 
springtime. When the poultryman goes to feed his chicks he 
notices one or two, perhaps more, standing around in a listless, 
dejected way, wings drooping or outspread, with possibly a white 
threadlike substance which has just exuded from the bowels 
clinging to the fluff around the vent. The chick may throw up 
its head and gape. In a few hours it will be dead. Its digestive 
system is deranged, and it is suffering from what is known as 
Diarrhcea or Enteritis. 

It is better, far better, to avoid this disease than to attempt to 
cure it. The poultryman should realize what a critical period 
feathering out is, and strive to meet it. Especially should he be 
careful about what he feeds his chicks, making no sudden changes 
in their bill of fare. Nor should he let them become chilled or get 
drenched in a shower. If, in spite of all precautions, chicken 
cholera makes its appearance, the house and brooders should be 
thoroughly cleaned, all drinking vessels scalded, and air-slacked 
lime sprinkled lightly about. Some good remedies are as fol- 
lows : "Boiled rice upon which has been sprinkled a little cinna- 
mon, lime water to drink, boiled milk and dry bran." In mild 
cases add one or two drams of sulphate of iron to a pint of drink- 
ing water. In very serious cases where the diarrhoea is accompa- 
nied by pain, fever or bloody discharges, give i-8 grain pow- 
dered opium and two grains subnitrate of bismuth every four 
hours. 

COLDS AND BRONCHITIS. 

Fowls are very susceptible to colds. The reason is, I sup- 
pose, that they are subjected to great changes of temperature. 
Poultry houses are so built that the sun shines full upon them, 
and at midday even in winter the interior is often very warm. It 
is generally when the temperature is highest that the fowls are 
working the hardest. The conditions are analogous to wdiat they 
would be were a man obliged to wear a heavy fur coat all the time 



75 

night and day and exercise in a room where the mercury was 
at 70 degrees, and then sleep in a room where it fell below zero. 
Such extremes would affect the hardiest constitution. Colds 
would not be nearly so common if poultry keepers would open the 
windows in their houses every day in winter when the sun shines, 
and keep them open from 1 1 o'clock in the morning until four in 
the afternoon. 

The symptoms of a cold are sneezing, bubbling at the nose, 
watery eye and perhaps diarrhoea. Colds generally cure them- 
selves without any especial treatment, but there is always a pos- 
sibility that colds if neglected may run into something serious. 
Ten drops of aconite in two quarts of drinking water is a simple 
and good remedy when administered in season. For mature birds 
a one-grain quinine pill or one Laxative Bromo Quinine Tablet, 
given each night for two or three nights, will generally do the 
business. The tablet should be greased, so that it will slip down 
easily. Here is a home-made pill that is effective. Take equal 
parts cayenne pepper, sulphate of quinine and sulphate of iron — 
mix together with extract gentian ; mould into pellets about the 
size of a pea, and give one every 24 hours. (This is not a bad 
remedy for human beings, doubling or trebling the dose.) 
Bronchitis is a' bad cold accompanied by coughing or rattling in 
the throat. The treatment is the same as for a common cold. 

THE DREAD SCOURGE— ROUP. 

Roup is now believed to be a bacterial disease — that is, dissem- 
inated by means of germs — and not as was formerly thought the 
result of a neglected cold. . If this is so, roup can only be intro- 
duced from outside; it cannot originate within. But it can be 
introduced in many ways : by means of a bird bought of a careless 
or irresponsible breeder, by means of excrement brought on the 
feet, by means of germs or spores floating in the air. The seeds 
of roup will remain for years, so that it is never safe to buy an old 
hen house, unless you are absolutely sure the disease has never 
been within its walls. Catarrh is often mistaken for roup, but in 
catarrh the peculiar smell that goes with roup is not present. 

Each new case as it comes up should be isolated. Roup may 
be discovered in two ways. A roupy bird generally sleeps with 
her head under her wing, and by going through the pen at night 
with a lantern one may easily find her. The other way in which 



76 

a roupy l)in;l may be told is by a slight moisture in the lower cor- 
ner of her eye, or perhaps little bubbles there: In well developed 
cases there is a roup smell that once known can never be mistaken. 
All suspects should be quarantined, fed lightly on a warm mash in 
which there is a little ginger, and given their drinking Avater in 
disinfected vessels. Two or three times a day spray their nostrils 
and mouths with the following solution : Extract witch hazel, four 
tablespoonfuls ; water, two tablespoonfuls ; carbolic acid, three 
drops. Use an atomizer, and squeeze the bulb five times for each 
nostril and twice for the mouth. The bird will often recover 
under this treatment. 

THE KEROSENE TREATMENT FOR ROUP. 

It is a question whether it pays to doctor a severe case of the 
roup. Even if the bird lives she will be worthless as a breeder, 
and it will I)e some time before she comes into shape to lay again. 
A sharp hatchet is about the best cure for roup that I know of. 
Still, if you want to give the bird a chance, try the kerosene treat- 
ment. — in my judgment, the simplest and best treatment known. 
Take a wooden pail and fill it two-thirds full of water, and then 
pour on one-half cupful of oil. Take bird by the feet and dip her 
head under water, letting it stay there while you count three. 
Wipe the bird well with a piece of soft cloth, and return to the 
hospital. Some of the kerosene will percolate through the outer 
skin, and some will be taken into the bird's mouth as she tries to 
clean up her feathers. The kerosene uniting with the pus coag- 
ulates it, and in a few days the mass scales off, leaving the tongue 
pink and clean. The patient is still weak, and should be kept in 
the hospital a while longer before she is returned to her mates. 

The best diet in roup is bread moistened with milk. The 
throat is so tender that hard food cannot be swallowed. I had a 
roupy bird that I had kerosened. She seemed to be doing well, 
but had no appetite. I tried to tempt her with a warm mash, but 
to no avail. I put her out doors to see if the warm sunshine 
would not hasten her cure. Soon I noticed her about the sink 
spout picking up the crumbs that ran down when my wiie washed 
the dishes. I took the hmt and gave her bread soaked in milk. 
She ate heartily and made a fine recovery. 

I would advise the poultryman to keep some standard roup 
remedv on hand, and when the disease breaks out to use the medi- 



77 

cine according to directions. In purchasing a remedy select one 
that can be administered in the food or water, and do not bother 
with pills or powders that you have to give to the individual bird. 

CHOLERA. 

Next to roup the most serious disease that the poultryman is 
called upon to combat is cholera. Cholera would be even more 
serious than roup were it as common. It is a disease of damp, 
hot weather, and disappears quickly, in a dry time or upon the 
approach of frost. Like roup cholera is transmitted by means of 
germs, and it affects not only the domestic fowls but some of the 
wild birds as well. 

Approach of cholera is generally heralded by loss of appetite 
on the part of the birds in a flock. The first definite symptom is 
discoloration of the urates, or the tip of the excrement ; in health 
the urates are white, but in cholera the urates are at first yellow, 
changing as the disease progresses to green. Diarrhoea sets in. 
The bird separates itself from the rest, stands in a dejected atti- 
tude with roughened plumage, and seems asleep. The crop is 
generallv distended with food and the bird when aroused is 
extremclv thirsty. Great weakness follows, and in a short time 
the bird dies. 

No satisfactory remedy for cholera has been discovered. 
Remove the infected birds to a place by themselves, and when one 
dies burn the body or bury it so deep that dogs or foxes cannot dig 
it up. Thoroughly clean up the house and yards, and bury the 
excrement. Sprinkle the floor and yards with a solution made of 
one pint carbolic acid and three gallons warm water, applied with 
a common w^atering pot. 

DISEASES OF THE LIVER. 

Nine-tenths of the diseases that afflict laying stock come from 
derangements of the digestive organs and of the liver. In order 
to get eggs it is necessary to feed highly, and this reacts upon the 
health. The poultryman must expect every now and then to lose 
a hen. Fortunately the value of the individual hen is not great, 
and he must not be disheartened if he finds one dead from time to 
time. When hens begin to drop off— as they will in the spring— 
the poultryman must immediately begin to revise his methods. 
He must feed a less stimulating ration, give more green food, and 



78 

compel his hens to take exercise. A teaspoonful of sulphate mag- 
nesia to each pint drinking water, given for a week, then followed 
for a month by adding one-fourth grain sulphate strychnia to two 
quarts water, is a good tonic. Where the liver is affected, as will 
be shown by the color of the comb — purple, becoming dark and 
even black — give a teaspoonful of castor oil once a day, instead of 
the sulphate of magnesia and strychnia. 

CROP BOUND. 

This condition is sufficiently described by the name. The bird 
mopes around, dejected in appearance, and upon examination her 
crop feels as if she had swallowed a base ball. Give her a table- 
spoonful of castor oil and put in a pen by herself for 12 hours, 
when the mass may pass away. If it does not it will be necessary 
to operate. You will need someone to assist you. With a sharp 
knife make a longitudinal incision three-quarters of an inch in 
length in the upper part of the crop, first pluckirxg out any feathers 
that may be in the way. Take a small hardwood skewer, such as 
butchers use, and begin to remove the contents of the crop. It 
will take some time. To make sure that everything has been 
removed and that there is no obstruction insert your little finger 
into the outlet of the crop, where the food passes into the gizzard. 
Rinse out the crop with warm water. Sew up the opening in the 
crop with silk thread, making each stitch by itself, tying and cut- 
ting the thread before making another. Do the same thing to the 
outside skin. Put the bird back in the pen by herself, and feed 
lightly on soft food for a few days. 

SCALY LEGS. 

"Scaly legs are the work of a minute parasite, and the trouble 
is contagious. There are quite a number of remedies, but more 
depends upon care for a few weeks than anything else. Take 
three tablespoonfuls of lard and add to it two tablespoonfuls of 
kerosene oil and one of glycerine; then drop into the mixture 
(which should be mixed warm, not hot) two drops of carbolic 
acid. Wash the legs of the fowl and wipe dry, rub on the mix- 
ture very thickly, having it warm, not overlooking any part. 
Repeat this twice a week for two or three weeks and the legs will 
soon become clean and perfectly smooth." 



79 

A GOOD TONIC. 

There are times when a good tonic is of great vahie in the 
poultry yard. After a long, cold winter or when disease makes 
its appearance and it is desirable to reinforce the health of the 
fowls, a good tonic should be given. Douglas Mixture is one of 
the best, and is used by poultrymen everywhere. It is made as 
follows : 

Sulphate of iron, 8 oz. 

Sulphuric acid, ^ oz. 

Water, i gal. 

Put into a bottle or jug one gallon water, add the sulphate of 
iron ; as soon as the iron is dissolved add the acid. When the 
mixture is clear it is ready for use. Dose, a tablespoonful to 
every quart of drinking water. The drinking vessels while using 
this tonic, must be glass or glazed earthenware. 

MOULTING. 

Moulting is not a disease, in the sense that it is something 
abnormal or unnatural ; but it is a disease in the sense that it is a 
state of discomfort or dis-ease. For best results in egg produc- 
tion birds should be helped through the moult, and the time 
should be made as brief as possible. 

Remove all males from the flock as soon as moulting begins, 
for it is best for both the males and females to be separated at 
this time. Feed about as usual, only be sure that plenty of meat 
or green ground bone is given in the daily ration, and that plenty 
of green food is always at hand. Three times a week in dry, 
bright w^eather put a tablespoonful of flowers of sulphur in the 
mash for every 50 fowls, and on alternate days a tablespoonful of 
carbonate of iron. Do not give the carbonate of iron to white 
fowls, unless you are indifferent as to the purity of their plum- 
age, for it will give the new feathers a creamy or brassy tinge. 
If this treatment is kept up during the entire moult the birds will 
get through easily, as there will be no loss of strength, nor will 
any of them hang in the moult, but keep on until completed. 

EGG EATING: HOW TO PREVENT IT. 
Egg eating is a vice that is much easier to prevent than to 
cure. Where the eggs are gathered at frequent intervals, where 
the hens are supplied with plenty of material for making shells, 



80 

where the hens are kept busy when not on the nests, egg eating is 
practically unknown. 

The only sure cure for egg eating is the hatchet. Before this 
is applied however an effort should be made to stop the vice. Two 
or more china eggs should be p'.aced in each nest, and plenty of 
these eggs strewn in the litter upon the floor. Then pare the 
upper beak of the guilty bird until it shows signs of bleeding, so 
that wdien she strikes at the china eggs the pain will make her 
stop. Generally this will effect a cure. Something can be done 
by having the nests in a dark place and so arranged that it is 
difificult for the hen to get at the egg after she has laid. A nail keg 
makes an excellent nest for egg-eating hens. I have known men 
to make a double-decked nest, so that the egg after being laid 
would drop through a small hole into the receptacle below. Raw 
salt pork, chopped fine, is recommended for egg-eating hens ; but 
the best thing is never to allow them to contract the habit. 

Mr. S. D. Fox, to whom I have several times referred, has a 
method of breaking hens of egg eating as novel as it is efficacious. 
"My hens got to eating eggs one spring," he says, "and I went to 
work to cure them. I got an egg, chipped off one end and took 
out the yolk and white. Then I filled up the egg with soft soap, 
sprinkled in a good stiff dose of cayenne pepper, stuck on the end 
with white court plaster, and dropped the egg on the hen house 
floor. They eat that egg. The next day I give 'em another. 
They eat that. The next day I give 'em a third. They didn't 
eat that, and they never eat another so far as I know. Didn't like 
the flavor, I guess. Hurt 'em ? Wall, no, I never see that it did. 
Might have cleaned 'em out a little — soft soap is good for that, 
you know — but it didn't rumple a feather, so far as I could see." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



PRODUCTS AND BY=PRODUCTS. 



Producing the eggs and rearing the chicks form but a part, 
and perhaps the smallest part, of the poultryman's business. In 
order to make money he must market the product to the best 
advantage. It is here, I am convinced, that the majority of poul- 
trymen fail. They are not good business men. They work hard 
enough, but do not calculate closely and do not sell at the right 
time or at the right place. In these days when competition is so 
close and the margin for profit so narrow, the difference between 
profit and loss in the poultry business may consist in the manner 
in which the product is put on the market. 

The man who keeps but a few hens and does not make poul- 
try raising his principal occupation, will probably do better to sell 
his eggs and poultry to his regular grocer than to hunt up private 
customers. It is true that he may receive a cent or two a dozen 
more if he sells at houses, but this is more than offset by the loss 
in time. The grocer is not so particular about his eggs, so long 
as they are fresh, as is the private customer, and will take eggs of 
all sizes and colors. It is true he does not wish to pay in cash, 
but the profit on his goods is about the only profit he makes on 
the transaction ; for the grocer is often compelled to sell eggs for 
just what he gave for them. The grocers are the great buyers of 
eggs throughout the land. 

The man who keeps hens on a larger scale, and who wants to 
make the most out of the business with the least trouble, will do 
well to make an arrangement with a city grocer to ship him a cer- 
tain number of cases each week throughout the year. The poul- 
tryman should go to the city and see the grocer personally. The 
chances are he will get an order. This is far more profitable than 
selling to the local grocer. In the town where I live I have seldom 
known eggs to go above 30 cents a dozen, and they remain at this 
figure but a short time ; while in the cities to the south of us they 
sometimes sell as high as 45 or 50 cents. 

The poultryman who produces a gilt-edged product can often 
market to private customers to advantage. The hotels will take 
a limited number of fancy fresh eggs. They do not take so many 



82 

as one would think, because in cooking they use cold storage eggs. 
Clubs are good customers, and will pay a fancy price for a fancy 
article. Druggists use a large number of brown eggs in connec- 
tion with their soda trade, and will often pay a good price for 
fresh eggs of good color. There are private families that will 
gladly pay the poultryman the same price they have to pay for 
eggs at the store, and pay in cash. The advantage of having pri- 
vate customers is, that one can sell them beside eggs, poultry, veg- 
etables, cream, berries and other products of the farm and garden. 

PRESERVIXG EGGS. 

There is always a time in spring when eggs are very cheap. 
The poultryman can add to his profits and at the same time relieve 
the congestion in the market by improving this opportunitv to lay 
down a supply of eggs for home consumption for the year to 
come. I do not believe in selling these preserved eggs for fresh 
eggs, but there is no reason why the poultryman should not use 
them in his own family. Neither is there any objection to selling 
them in the fall, provided they are sold for just what they are — 
preserved eggs and not fresh eggs. I know a man who every 
spring when eggs are cheap lays down 400 dozen, and then about 
Thanksgiving sells them for a little less per dozen than is asked 
for the best fresh eggs, clearing up about $60 by the deal. A 
profit of 150 per cent, in six months leaves Wall Street out of 
sight. There are two absolutely sure methods of keeping eggs, 
"both of which I print. These methods are the soluble glass and 
the lime w^ater methods. Of the two I prefer the soluble glass, 
as cleaner and more convenient. Bear in mind, however, that no 
method under the sun will keep eggs fresh which are not fresh 
when laid down ! 

LIME WATER METHOD. 

Slack four pounds lime, and then add four pounds salt, stir- 
ring well together. Add eight gallons water. Stir and leave to 
settle. The next day stir again. After the mixture has settled 
the second time draw off or carefully dip out the clear liquid.: 
Take two ounces each of baking soda, cream of tartar, saltpetre, 
and a little alum. Pulverize and mix, and dissolve in two quarts 
boiling water. Add this to the lime water. Put the eggs in a 
stone jar, small end down, one layer on top of another, and pour 



83 

on the solution. Set the jar away in a cool place. This process 
has been secret in the past, and the recipe has been widely sold 
for $5. The method is quite satisfactory, although not so good 
as the method of preserving in soluble glass, as the eggs are liable 
to have a somewhat limy taste. 

SOLUBLE GLASS METHOD. 

Soluble glass, or sodium silicate, is a liquid of a rather smooth, 
slippery consistency, readily soluble in water. It is used by physi- 
cians for coating bandages, where it is desired to protect the 
injured part from the air, and may be obtained through any drug- 
gist at a cost of about 75 cents a gallon. For preserving eggs 
use one part soluble glass to about 10 parts pure water. Put the 
eggs in a stone jar, small end down, one layer on top of another 
until the jar is filled, then pour on the solution. If the specific 
gravity of the solution is greater than that of the eggs, as is some- 
times the case, add water until the eggs will just sink. 

SALICYLIC ACID AND COLD STORAGE. 

The West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station has been 
studying methods of preserving eggs, and finds that the treatment 
with salicylic acid followed by cold storage is quite efficacious. 
The station does not claim that the method has passed the experi- 
mental stage, and does not advise anyone to use it except in an 
experimental way. It is worth trying, and is as follows : "Sub- 
merge the fresh eggs for 5 or 10 minutes in a solution of one 
ounce of salicylic acid in one quart of strong alcohol ; and imme- 
diately on removing the eggs from the solution, and while they are 
still wet, wrap them in sterilized cotton and store in a box or bar- 
rel in a dry room the temperature of which does not go above 60 
■degrees Fahrenheit." 

WOOD ASHES OR SALT. 

There are many however who desire a simpler method than 
any of these described, and to such I would recommend either 
wood ashes or salt. Wood ashes are excellent. Experiments 
■conducted by the National Agricultural School in Germany shov/ 
that eggs may be kept a year packed in wood ashes, with a loss of 
only 20 per cent. Wood ashes are cleanly, convenient and always 
at hand. Salt also is good. Use a grade of salt a little coarser 



84 

than table salt, — what is called coarse-fine salt. Pack the eggs in 
a stone jar. Put in first a layer of salt, then a layer of eggs, and 
so on until the jar is filled. Stand the eggs upon the small ends, 
and do not let them touch. Cover them completely with salt. Set 
the jar in a cool place. I have known eggs packed in this way to 
keep a year, and to be as good at the end of that time for cooking 
as if laid but a few days before. 

POULTRY MANURE— A VALUABLE BY-PRODUCT. 

Poultry manure is an exceedingly valuable by-product. It is 
a highly stimulating manure. It is also a rich plant food. Poul- 
try manure is more than twice as valuable as sheep or hog 
manure, and more than three times as valuable as ordinary stable 
manure, as the followinsf table will show : 



o 

Pel- cent. 

Sheep 0.768 

Pigs 0.840 

Cows 0.426 

Horses 0.490 

Poultry Manure 0.800 to 

2.000 

Poultry manure is so powerful that great care must be taken in 
applying it. It should never be allowed to come into direct con- 
tact with the roots of the growing plant. When applied in the 
hill it should be well mixed with the soil. 

Poultry manure supplies nitrogen in large quantities in the form 
of ammonia, but ammonia being a highly volatile product is rapidly 
dissipated. The problem of the poultrymen, therefore, in dealing 
with hen manure is to find some substance that will fix the ammo- 
nia. Sifted earth is not good, for it is apt to contain bacteria 
which act destructively on the ammonia compounds. Wood 
ashes are worse than nothing, for they do not hold ammonia, but 
drive it ofif by their caustic alkaline properties. 

The best thing I have found to preserve the ammonia in hen 







> 


Per cent. 


Pel- cent. 




0.391 


0.591 


$330 


0.390 


0.320 


3-29 


0.290 


0.440 


2.02 


0.260 


0.480 


2.21 


0.500 to 


0.800 to 


7.07 


2.000 


0.900 





85 

manure is gypsum or land plaster, which may be bought for 50 
cents per 100 pounds. Scatter a few handfuls of plaster over the 
droppings before you remove them in the morning, and see that 
it is thoroughly incorporated. The result is a compound as valu- 
able as any commercial fertilizer. The droppings from a fowl 
in one year, when treated in this way, are worth one-half what it 
costs to feed her. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE END OF THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 



The poultryman who keeps from 300 to 500 head of laying 
stock will have a good deal of poultry to dispose of, especially if 
he follows my advice in this book to keep pullets, principally, for 
layers. It will be quite a problem to dispose of this stock to the 
best advantage. In passing I would remark that the poultryman 
should keep his own table well supplied. Plump and juicy 
broilers and roasters are just as good for him as they are for any 
one else. There is no reason why the poultryman's table should 
not rejoice once a week with broilers or roasters. During the 
summer there is in most towns a good market for poultry. The 
poultryman should steadily cull from his flock, and about moult- 
ing time have a grand ''round up," selling the fowls for what 
they will bring, — except those he wishes to keep over for breeders. 
Quite a number of live cockerels may be disposed of among the 
farmers in the fall if the poultryman keeps a popular breed and 
will sell for a fair price. 

KILLING AND DRESSING FOWLS FOR MARKET. 

I. Take the bird from the roost at night, 36 hours before it 
is to be killed, and shut it up in comfortable quarters. The next 
morning give it a good breakfast, but nothing more to eat after 
this until it is killed. Let it have all the water it will drink. The 
water will add greatly to the fowl's comfort and assist in evacu- 
ating the bowels. The confinement is for the purpose of having 
the fowl at hand and of emptying the crop. 



86 

2. Suspend the fowl by the feet at a convenient height with 
a soft cord, the upper end of which is secured to a hook or nail in 
the ceiling or beam over head. 

3. Lock the wings together behind the back, to prevent flap- 
ping. Do this carefully, so that they will not be dislocated. 

4. Take the tip of the wings in the left hand, and with the 
right strike the fowl a smart blow on the head with a stick or 
cudgel. Strike hard enough to produce concussion of the brain 
and unconsciousness. 

5. Grasp the fowl by the comb or by the feathers at the back 
of the head with the left hand, and wath the right insert the blade 
of a sharp knife in the neck just back of the ear lobe, on the under 
side of the neck bone and parallel with it. Run the blade clear 
through the neck. When you withdraw the blade twist it to right 
angles with the neck bone, severing the artery in the throat, and 
causing the blood to flow profusely. 

6. Begin to pluck immediately. Pluck up the breast and sides 
to tail. Remove tail feathers. Unlock the wings, and strip them 
of long feathers. Remove feathers from around vent. Pluck 
the feathers from back. Finish plucking. If done quickly the 
feathers will come out easily and the skin will not be torn. The 
bird should be entirely denuded of feathers in 10 minutes. In 
case rents are made sew them up neatly with white thread. 

7. If the fowl is to be drawn, with a sharp knife cut a slit 
about an inch long back of the vent and parallel with it, through 
which insert index finger, hooking it into the intestines. Remove 
intestines. The lower end of the intestines and the egg sac may 
be removed by enlarging the slit in the shape of a half circle, until 
it joins the ends of the vent. This will make a round hole about 
the size of a silver half dollar. After removing the intestines cut 
ofi^ the fowl's head, then draw back the skin and take off about an 
inch of the neck bone, pull the skin forward and tie. 

8. "For the Boston and New England markets the poultry 
should be picked perfectly c'.ean. For the New York markets the 
tip feathers of the wings are left on. Do not singe the bodies for 
the purpose of removing any down or hair, as the heat from the 
flame will give them an oi'.y and unsightly appearance." 

9. "Plumping is recommended by some dealers, and consists 
in dipping the carcass as soon as thoroughly picked for 10 seconds 
in water nearly or quite boiling hot, and then immediately into 



87 

ice-cold water." This makes the meat look plump and fat, con- 
siderably improving its appearance. 

lo. "The laws of Massachusetts and New York do not 
require poultry to be drawn. In the former State however the 
crop must be drawn if there is food in it at the time of killing. 
Custom, which is quite as potent as statute law, requires that 
poultry marketed in Massachusetts be drawn; and carefully drawn 
poultry will sell so much more readily and for so much better 
prices, that it pays well to comply with this demand." 

TO SCALD A FOWL. 

Where the fowl is to be eaten at home, or where it is sold for 
immediate consumption, many prefer to remove the feathers by 
scalding. There is a right and a wrong way to do this. The 
right way is as follows : Kill in the manner described in preceding 
section. After the blood has stopped dripping from the wound 
take a wooden pail, or some other receptacle, fill it three-fourths 
full of boiling water, and into this pour a pint of cold water to 
reduce the temperature a little below the boiling point. Take the 
fowl by the neck and legs and dip it into the water twice, — once 
with the breast downward and once with the back, — getting it in 
and out of the water as quickly as possible. Hang the fowl up 
again, and begin to pluck. When the feathers have been removed 
and the intestines drawn, dip out two quarts of water from the 
pail, putting two quarts of boiling water in its place. Put the 
carcass into this, and let it stay lo seconds, then take it out and 
put it in water nearly if not quite ice cold, letting it stay lo min- 
utes. This, as has been explained, is "plumping," and gives the 
carcass a very plump and inviting appearance. Put a tablespoon- 
ful of salt into the cold water at the same time the fowl is put in. 
Hang up the fowl in a cool place until it is to be cooked or sold. 
Fowls treated in this way present an excellent appearance, and 
will keep several days without discoloration. 

PACKING AND SHIPPING. 

"Carefully sew up all rents or torn places on the skin, wash 
clean in cool water, wipe dry and hang in a cool place until the 
animal heat is entirely out, before packing. Pack in clean barrels 
or boxes with clean straw, as follows : first a thin layer of straw 
and then a layer of poultry in the same posture in which they roost, 



88 

then a layer of straw and another of pouUry, and so on until the 
barrel or box is quite full, finishing with a layer of straw which 
should be tucked firmly into any crevices in the sides. Nail the 
corners or head on securely, and mark carefully with the name 
and address of the dealer to whom you ship, not forgetting your 
name and address as shipper ; and notify the dealer by postal or 
letter that you have shipped him one or more boxes or barrels of 
dressed poultry by freight or express, as the case may be. 
Always take a receipt from the freight or express agent, and ship 
so as to reach the market not later than Friday." 

SHIPPING FOWLS ALIVE. 

The great majority of fowls that are sent to market are 
shipped alive. Commission men prefer them in this way. They 
can kill them in lots as desired, and can dress them to suit the 
fancy or caprice of their customers. The Jews, who are now a 
large and important element in our cities, will not eat fowls, unless 
they are killed by a rabbi, and this makes a constant demand for 
live .poultry. Fowls are generally shipped by express in old 
strawberry crates or small light boxes of some sort. Before being 
sent off thev should be given all the whole corn they will eat and 
be watered. Commission men are continually sending out circu- 
lars soliciting shipments. Some of these men are reliable and 
some are not. In general it may be said that it is safe to make 
consignments to firms that occupy stalls in public markets or who 
have been in business a term of years. Men who have their 
offices or places of business in obscure quarters or who have lately 
started should be investigated. If they are all right the investiga- 
tion will do them no harm, and if they are not all right it may 
save the shipper a loss he can ill afford. 



CHAPTER XV. 



SALAD AND DRESSING. 



Never get too old to learn. 

About as many failures in the poultry business come from 
keeping loo fowls where there is room for only 25, as from any 
other source. 

Sitting hens should not be allowed to dust in coal ashes, as the 
fine particles clog the pores in the egg shells. Dry earth is the 
best stuff for a sitting hen to dust in. 

Kainit may be substituted for plaster to mix with the manure 
in case a manure particularly rich in potash is wanted, and acid 
phosphate may be substituted for a rich phosphatic manure. 

It is a good plan for a poultryman to keep a few standard 
remedies on hand all the time. Tlien if disease comes down upon 
him like the wolf on the fold, he is in a measure prepared to 
meet it. 

Lice multiply upon a sick fowl, because its vitality is so 
depleted that it cannot keep itself clean. Accordingly, when you 
remove a sick fowl to the hospital for treatment give it a good 
dusting with insect powder before you administer the medicine. 

Introduce new blood from time to time, but do not introduce 
it indiscriminately. Find a man who is working along the same 
lines with yourself, and get your males from him. Breed in two 
years, and the third year send away to the same man for more 
males. 

Green ground bone is a grand food for fowls, but it must be 
fresh and not fed in too great quantity. A correspondent writes 
that she lost yy out of a flock of 94 beautiful chicks in three weeks 
by feeding ground bone that she bought of a local dealer. Prob- 
ably the bone was tainted, or she fed too much. 

Rats. — Rats are naturally granivorous, and prefer corn to 
anything else. The poultryman should take advantage of this 
fact. Let him scatter a handful of whole corn about each rat 
hole, and the rat will not molest the chicks. It may seem rather 
expensive to feed rats on corn, but it is not so expensive as it is to 
feed them on chicken meat. The poultryman should keep his 
eye peeled and his traps set for the rascals at the same time. 



90 

Eggs for Hatching. — How long may eggs for hatching 
safely be kept ? To find out, go and ask the old hen that has 
stolen her nest. She will tell you that she has been hiding away 
eggs in the haymow or under the barn for at least three weeks, 
and that she expects every egg to hatch a chick. In a tempera- 
ture of from 40 to 60 degrees, eggs may safely be kept at least 
three weeks before they are put in an incubator or under a hen. 
They should be turned every day. 

Medium-Sized Fowl Called For. — The market now calls 
for a medium-sized fowl. There was a time when the demand 
was for "old hoosiers," but that day has gone forever, I will tell 
you why. A bird dressing ten pounds has no more legs or wings 
than a bird dressing four or five. In the case of a large fowl 
part of the meat is left uneaten on the plate. In the case of a 
medium-sized fowl, a leg or wing is just right for an order. 
Shrewd buyers have learned that it is more profitable to buy two 
medium-sized fowls than one large one. There is still an occa- 
sional call for a large fowl, but the smaller ones are the better 
sellers. 

Be Gentle — Be gentle with your birds. The hen is natur- 
ally timid and easily scared. When kindly treated however she 
becomes tame. Much of the pleasure in keeping fowls comes 
from having them so tame that they \\-ill let their owner work 
among them and even handle them at his will. One should never 
lose his temper, no matter how great the provocation. The hen is 
not a reasoning creature and often sorely tries her owner's 
patience. But if he never allows himself to get angry or treat her 
unkindly no matter what she may do, poultry keeping becomes 
not only a source of pleasure and profit but a means of moral dis- 
cipline not to be despised. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
inherit the earth," is a beatitude as true in the poultry business as 
it is elsewhere. 

Precocious pullets seldom make phenomenal layers. 

Dry planer shavings make the best material for nests. 

Select a breed of fowl as you do a wife — to please yourself. 

Don't go into the poultrv business unless you have a "call" 
to it. 

There is little danger of overfeeding hens after they begin 
to lay. 

Clear poultry manure, lightly sprinkled with coal ashes or land 
plaster to fix the ammonia, is worth a dollar a barrel. 



91 

If yonr method of feeding gives good results don't change it 
because you happen to read of someone else who feeds differently. 

The fool knows it all to begin with. The wise man learns by 
his experience. The wisest man learns by his experience and the 
experience of others. 

Read this book over time and again until you have thoroughly 
assimilated it. The closer you follow its teachings the more dol- 
lars you will make. 

To get rid of the neighbor's cat, explode a torpedo under her 
tail whenever she comes around. This will scare the cat, but do 
her no permanent harm. The neighbor will appreciate the joke, 
and you will get rid of the cat and keep your neighbor's good will 
at the same time. 

After a hen has laid an egg she cackles. Go and do thou 
likewise! If your birds have taken a prize at the county fair, 
cackle. If they have made a big egg record, cackle. If you have 
some fine stock to sell, cackle. In these days publicity and pros- 
perity go together. 

Does it pay to caponize? About this, as about everything 
else, there is a difference of opinion. It takes so long to bring a 
capon to maturity that the gain in size is offset by the extra cost 
for food, to say nothing of the care. Unless you have a special 
market, better not bother with capons. 

If you are in the business for eggs, and eggs alone, the sooner 
you get rid of your surplus "crowers" the better. I know a man 
who disposes of his cockerels, as soon as he can distinguish them 
from the pullets, for lo cents each. He claim; he is better off to 
sell them for this sum than to keep them. 

Some think the shape of the egg determines the sex of the 
chick that is to be hatched. This is a mistake. The shape of the 
egg has no eifect upon the sex of the germ it contains. A more 
plausible theory is that the shape of the egg will influence the 
shape of the chick that begins its life in it, — a long egg giving a 
long, rangey chick, and a short, round egg a more blocky chick. 
This is worth investigating. 

Don't be in too much of a hurry to have your chicks begin to 
roost. Put the roost in their house one foot from the floor and let 
them find out what it is there for themselves. Some adventurous 
chick will discover it after a while and get upon it; others will 
follow, and after a few weeks the whole flock will be roosting at 
night. Should there be any laggards drive them about with the 



92 

soft end of the broom one or two nights until they are glad to get 
on the roost with the rest. 

The worst feature of the poultry business is its slavery. The 
poultryman must be on deck 365 days in a year, and in leap years 
366. Sundays and holidays bring little relief ; for the stock must 
be fed and watered, the eggs collected, and the chicks and sitting 
hens looked after as well as at other times. On small plants it is 
difficult to get a man to step in for a few days, who will not 
demoralize the whole thing. No man should go into the poultry 
business who does not have a real love for it; otherwise the 
monotony and slavery will become intolerable. 

What rewards may a well-equipped poultryman expect? Not 
a fortune. You can count on your fingers, almost, the men who 
have made fortunes in the poultry business. And these men have 
made their money by selling birds and eggs to breeders rather 
than by catering to the regular trade. But a careful, industrious 
man, one who has a real liking for the work and has gone into it 
intelligently, may reasonably expect a good living, a pleasant 
home, health, and the independence that comes from being one's 
own master. 

Novel Way to Break Up a Hen.- — After you have tried 
every other method you can think of to break up a hen, without 
avail, just tie a piece of red string or tape to her tail. Tie it so 
that there will be two loose ends, each about six inches long, to 
flutter behind. Tlie hen will at once lose all interest in a seden- 
tary life, and will start out of the house as if she was going to a 
fire. She will run until she is tired out, when she will stop ; then 
she will start in and after a short rest run again. When night 
comes you will find her on the roost, cured. Take the ribbon off 
her tail, if she has not got it off herself. This may seem an heroic 
inethod, but as Shakspere observes : 

"Diseases desperate grown 
By desperate appliance are relieved, 
Or not at all." 

Economy, Practicability. — In preparing this book I have 
been governed by two considerations : economy, practicability. 
By economy I mean not only frugality in the use of money, but 
also frugality in the use of time. I am aware that the great 
majority of those who keep fowls are not able to devote their 
whole time to the business, but must combine poultry keeping 



93 

with other pursuits. I have had this class in mind in writing this 
book, and have endeavored to show how the maximum of profit 
may be obtained with the minimum of effort. Every statement in 
the book has been tested by actual experience, and may be relied 
upon implicitly. I expect to learn as long as I live and to mod- 
ify details from time to time, but never expect to depart radically 
from the principles laid down in these pages. 

To Dust a Hen. — With your left hand grasp the hen by the 
legs, and lay her breast-down upon a newspaper. The powder 
should be in a tin box with a handle and a perforated cover. 
Sprinkle the powder into the feathers around the vent, rubbing it 
in well. Work the powder into the feathers about the neck. 
Work the powder into the feathers on the sides and under the 
wings. Let the hen stand a moment, keeping your hands lightly 
around her so that she cannot get away. Return her to the roost 
and take another. After going through the pen shake the powder 
that has fallen on the newspaper back into the can or package. 
One application kills the lice that are on the hen at the time, but in 
a week there will be another brood. The best poultrymen recom- 
mend dusting, a hen at least three times, at intervals a week apart, 
and never admitting a strange hen into the pen without first dust- 
ing her thoroughly. One lousy hen will contaminate all the rest, 
and so it is necessary to be on one's guard all the time. 

Causes of Disease. — The more troublesome diseases of fowls, 
with their causes, may be summed up as follows : Roup — intro- 
duced by germs. Cholera — filth and overcrowding. Diarrhoea — 
damp houses, filthy houses and runs, overcrowding. Canker — 
dampness and filth. Diphtheria — roosting in draughts, also damp 
houses. Ulcerated throat — same. Consumption — neglected 
cold. Apoplexy, vertigo and epilepsy — overfeeding. Sore 
eyes — damp houses. Costiveness and constipation — improper 
food. Soft and swelled crop— overfeeding. Indigestion and 
dyspepsia — same. Pip — damp quarters. Bronchitis — same. Black 
rot — result of indigestion. Soft-shelled eggs — overfeeding. 
Gout, rheumatism and cramp — damp houses. Leg weakness — 
inbreeding and overfeeding. Bumble foot — high perches. Scaly 
legs — filthy and damp quarters. 

Whitewash. — There is no better whitewash for outside work 
than that used by the United States government for public build- 
ings, which is made as follows : Take half a bushel of unslacked 



94 

lime and slack it with lioiling water, covering during the process 
to keep in steam. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or strainer, 
and add a peck of salt previously dissolved in warm water ; three 
pounds of ground rice boiled to a thin paste and stirred in while 
hot ; half a pound of Spanish wdiiting, one pound of clean glue. 
Before the glue is added it should be dissolved in cold water and 
then brought to a state where it will flow freely by l)eing placed 
over a slow fire in a small pot set in a larger one, — the larger pot 
being filled with water. Add five gallons hot water to the mix- 
ture, stir well, and let it stand a few days w'here no dirt can get 
into it. Apply hot. One pint of this whitewash will cover one 
square yard. Coloring matter may be added asdesired. For cream 
color add yellow ochre ; for pearl or lead color add lampblack 
or ivory black ; for fawn color add proportionately four pounds of 
umber to one pound of common Indian red and one pound of 
common lampblack ; for common stone color add proportionately 
four pounds of raw umber to two pounds lampblack. 

A Field Near Home. — The man who does not have the cap- 
ital to engage in the business on a large scale, or who does not 
feel competent to compete with breeders of established reputation, 
may largely increase his profits by imitating their methods wathin 
a limited area. Farmers are waking up to the importance of keep- 
ing thoroughbred stock. The average farmer does not feel that 
he can afford to pay $2 or even $1 for a sitting of eggs, but he will 
gladly pay 50 cents. The man who introduces a new and prom- 
ising variety into his neighborhood, or who has a strain of any 
established breed noted for egg production, can count on a large 
sale of eggs for hatching around home. It is more profitable to 
sell eggs to the farmers for 50 cents a sitting than to sell them 
for double that sum to customers out of town ; for in the latter 
case there is the expense for advertising and baskets, the time 
consumed in packing the eggs and in correspondence. 

How TO Break Up a Sitting Hen. — Don't be in a hurry 
to break up the sitting hen. She has laid long and 
v^ell and needs a vacation before she starts in again. 
If it is summer put her out of the house and yard and let her 
forage for herself a few days. If it is winter or spring, put her 
in a pen built for broodies, give her a light feed of mash for 
breakfast, nothing for dinner, and the same for supper. Give 
her all the water she will drink. In a week she will be cured 
and come back to the flock with a good appetite, and in another 



95 

week she .will begin to lay. The philosophy of this method is 
that the scanty ration makes the hen uneasy and she forgets her 
desire for incubation. It won't hurt her to go a little hungry for 
a few days, for if she is in a condition to sit she has stored up 
plenty of fat and it will do her good to consume some of it. It 
is a fact not generally known that wdiere no nest eggs are used 
and where the eggs laid are gathered two or three times a day, 
hens are not nearly so likely to get broody as they are when they 
feel a clutch of eggs under them every time they go on the nest. 

The two requisites of success in the poultry business are 
brains and pains. 

The poultryman who expects winter eggs from immature or 
stunted pullets is going to be badly disappointed. It requires good 
food, good care and a good steady growth from shell to maturity 
to develop winter layers. 



A SETTIN' HEX. 

When a hen is bound to set. 
Seems as though 'tain't etiket 
Dowsin' her in water till 
She's connected with a chill. 
Seems as thou.^h 'twas skursely right 
Givin' her a dreadful fright, 
Tyin' rags around her tail, 
Poundin' on an old tin pail, 
Chasin' her around the yard. 
— Seems as though 'twas kinder hard 
Bein' kicked and slammed and shooed 
'Cause she wants to raise a brood. 
I sh'd say it's gettin' gay 
Jest 'cause natur' wants its way, 
— While ago my neighbor, Penn, 
Started bustin' up a hen ; 
Went to yank her off the nest, 
Hen, though, made a peck and jest 
Grabbed his thumbnail good and stout, 
— Liked to yanked the darn thing out. 
Penn he twitched away and then 
Tried again to grab the hen. 
But, by ginger, she had spunk, 
'Cause she took and nipped a junk 
Big's a bean right out his palm. 
Swallowed it, and cool and calm 
Histed up and yelled "Cah-dah !" 
— Sounded like she said "Hoo-rah!" 
Wal, sir, when that hen done that, 
Penn he bowed, took off his hat, 
— Spunk jest suits him, you can bet — 
"Set," says he, "gol darn ye, SET." 

— Holman F. Day in Lewiston Journal. 



INDEX, 



A PAGE 

American Breeds Best 42 

B 

Best Sexed Birds 48 

Breeding for 200 Eggs 56-61 

Breed from Best Birds 57 

Brooder, Care of 68 

Brooder, Install One 66 

Brooder, Removing Chicks to 67 

Brooder, Secrets of Success with 68 

Brooder Chicks, How Author Feeds. 68 
Brooder Chicks, Another Man's Way. 69 



Carbohydrates 35 

Chicks and Their Care 66-71 

Chicks, Diseases of Ti 

Chicks, with Hens 70 

Chicks, When to Hatch 71 

Cholera "n 

Colds and Bronchitis 74 

Colony Plan 8 

Community Plan 10 

Colony-Community Plan 14 

Crop Bound /S 

Crosses 5^^ 

D 

Diarrhcea 74 

Diseases, Causes of 93 

Diseases, the More Common 72-80 

Drinking Water 24 

Dust Bath 22 



Egg Eating 79 

Egg Foods and Tonic 43 

Eggs, Feeding for 25-33 

Eggs in Fall and Winter 41-45 

Egg Production, Conditions of 7 

Egg Records, How Wrecked 6 

Egg Type 7 

End of 200 Egg Hen 85-88 

Exercise ~'i> 



Fats 35 

Feeding, a Woman's Way 33 

Feeding, Caution , 29 

Feeding, Golden Rule for 30 

Feeding, How Much 26 

Feeding, Summer Method 29 

Feeding, Variety Necessary 28 

Feeding, Winter Method 27 

Foods and Food Values 34-40 

G 

Grit, Charcoal and Oyster Shells 23 

Green Food Vl 

H 

Flen Persuader, Air. Fox's 45 

Heredity 4 

Home of 200 Egg Hen 8-17 

I 

Incubation, Artificial and Natural. 61-65 

Incubator or Hen 62 

Incubator, Get a Good One. 63 



K 



PAGE 

. 85 



Killing and Dressing 

L 

Leg Bands.. \ 61 

Lice and Red Mites 20 

Liver, Diseases of TJ 

M 

Alale, Importance of 58 

Manure, Poultry. . ., 84 

Mature Birds, Breed from 58 

Moulting 79 

Montana Experiment Station House.. 12 

N 

Natural Hen Incubator 

Non-Layers , 



63 
6 



Packing and Shipping 87 

Piano Box Houses 17 

Prize Method of Feeding 44 

Products and By-Products 81-85 

Preserving Eggs, Methods of 82-83 

Pullets, to Start Laying 45 

R 

Rats 89 

Rations, Balanced, etc 36 

Reproduction, Conditions of 47 

Peproduction, Sex Element in 48 

Roup 75 

S 

Salad and Dressing 89-95 

Sanitation in Egg Production 18-24 

Scalding Fowls 87 

Sex Element in Egg Production.. 46-51 

Scaly Legs 78 

Shipping Live Fowls 88 

Sitting Hen, Care of 64 

Sitting Hen, to Break Up 94 

Successful Men — How Some Feed... 30 

Summer, Sanitation in 24 

Sex, Law of 49 

Sex, Selection by 49 

Sick Birds, Segregate 72 

Sickness, Beginnings of 72 

T 

Tables 39-40 

Testing Eggs 65 

Tonic, A Good 79 

Things to Bear in Mind 37 

Trap Nest and Its Uses 52-55 

Two Hundred Egg Hen 3-7 



V 



Varieties, How Many 5 

Vermin, to Rid House of 21 

W 

Water Test 65 

Winter Eggs from Pullets 41 

Winter Eggs, Feeding for .'. . . 43 

Winter Eggs, Not Fertile 60 

Whitewash, Government 93 

Y 
■li'ard, Poultry 23 



PAR.OID ROOFING. 

^'IT LASTS/' 



A Permanent Ready Roofing. 

Adapted to Any Roof in All Climates. 
Requires No Repairing, and No Paint when First Laid. 

Does Not Require Skilled Help to Lay. 
COMPLETE ROOFING KIT IN EACH ROLL. 




SSeponset \^ed Rope Roofing. 

Best low cost roofing and siding made. Standard among Farmers 
and Poultrymen for twenty years. Keeps the building dry and warm. 
PAROID for the roof and NEPONSET for the sides is the best 
combination obtainable. 

WRITE US FOR SAMPLES AND FURTHER PARTICULARS. 



F^. W. BIRD & 30N, 

MAKERS, 
Efl^ST ^W«IvI>Ot.B, MASS. 

NEW^ YORK. ^vaSHINGXON. CHICAGO. 



, OP, BEL TO CM. 0« 



N?** ''" 



PAaOID ROOFING. 

iT LASTS/' 



A Permanent Ready Roofing. 

Adapted to Any Roof in All Climates. 
Requires No Repairing, and No Paint when First Laid. 

Does Not Require Skilled Help to Lay. 
COMPLETE ROOFING KIT IN EACH ROLL. 




Neponset Red R.ope Roofing. 

Best low cost toofing and siding made. Standard among Farmcfs 
and Powltfymen fot twenty years. Keeps the building dry and warm. 
PAROID for the roof and NEPONSET for the sides is the best 
combination obtainable. 

WRITE US FOR SAMPLES AND FURTHER PARTICULARS. 



F^. W. BIRD & SON, 

MAKERS, 
B5tST y^Rl^lPO'LlE^, MASS. 

NE^^W YORK. ^VfliSHINGTON. CHICAGO. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



XHE GENUINB F»ATENTED 





Arc Recognized To-day as 

W Worm's staniiarii 




CYPHERS JIEANS CERTAINTY. 

You buy a Certainty when you buy a Cyphers. Certain results— Certain profits- 
Certain satisfaction. Cyphers non-moisture incubators are giving certain satisfaction on 
more large successful poultry plants, with more fanciers of National and International 
reputation, and on more Government Experiment Stations than all other makes of 
incubators combined. 

CYPHERS UNEQUALLED APARTMENT BROODERS. 

Certainty, safety and security are combined in Cyphers Brooders. Don't risk losses of 
well-hatched chicks in a cheap, wrongly constructed brooder when you can obtain a cer- 
tainty of safety in the Cyphers Brooders. They are the best artificial mothers for small 
chicks from the incubator to the weaning coop. 






or 



Registered in Twelve Countries. 



Biaiiii It's tiie eest. 



THE CYPHERS INCUBATOR CO. Operates the Largest and Best Equipped Incubator, 
Brooder and Poultry Supply Manufactory in the World. 

Makers of and Dealers in Poultrymen's 
Necessities, including Cyphers Chick Food, 
Forcing Food, Laying Food, Scratching Food, 
Cut Clover, Shredded Clover, Mealed Clover, 
Portable Houses, Colony Houses, Brood 
Coops, Cyphers Series of Practical Poultry 
Books, Napcreol, Poultry Remedies, Roup 
Cure, Lice Paint, Lice Powder, Ovinapthol 
Nest Eggs, Egg Food, in fact the " Best of 
Everything for Poultrymen." 

If yon keep hens, no matter liow few, you need our 
Annual Poultry Snpply Catalogrne. It will 
show you How to Make and Save Money. If 
you raise chickens and are interested in Incubators 
and Brooders, ask for Jarge main Catalogue, listing 
the full line of genuine Cyphers Goods. 

ADDRESS NEAREST OFFICE. 

CYPHERS INCUBATOR COMPJtNY, 

Factory and Home Offices, BUFFALO, N. Y. 
Branches-CmCAGO, NEW TOBK, BOSTON. 




